The Upside of Irrationality
by Dan Ariely · first published 2010
40% recommend53% neutral7% critical
Why HN recommends it
Accessible, example-driven tour of how people make predictably irrational decisions, cited as a lens for everyday behavior and workplace choices; suits general readers and anyone interested in behavioral economics.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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Everything Is Obvious: *Once You Know the Answer by Duncan J. Watts Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation by Steven Johnson The Upside of Irrationality by Dan Ariely The Hidden Brain: How Our Unconscious Minds Elect Presidents, Control Markets, Wage Wars by Shankar Vedantam The Googlization of Everything: (And Why We Should Worry) by Siva Vaidhyanathan…
on “Ask HN: What are some Good Books you have read in past one year or so..” ↗- The Peter Principle: Why Things Always Go Wrong by Lawrence J. Peter & Raymond Hull - The Upside of Irrationality by Dan Ariely - Screw It, Let's Do It: Lessons In Life by Sir Richard Branson
on “Ask HN: What three books impacted your career the most?” ↗The upside of irrationality. Ariely Germs guns and steel. Jared Diamond Influence, the psychology of persuasion. Cialdini Justice: what's the right thing to do. Sandel QED. Fyenman All of Feynman lectures on physics The hard…
on “Ask HN: Books you wish you had read earlier?” ↗Its "The Upside of Irrationality", Chapter 7. Great read.
on “What makes one appear smarter and more sociable? ” ↗His follow-on book: "The Upside of Irrationality" is also a great read.
on “Dan Ariely and Irrational Comparison” ↗The Upside of Irrationality really works to pinpoint so many things happening in the world. The number of times I've quoted that book in discussions leaves me flabbergasted.
on “In Zimbabwe, We Don’t Cry for Lions” ↗This phenomena was described to a t in Dan Ariely's The Upside of Irrationality. In it, he first describes a situation in which one would be paid a high salary (I think a million dollars) for creating power points that were immediately deleted. He asserts that most people would…
on “17% leave their job due to insufficient recognition” ↗…reference is that studies have shown that people vastly overestimate the magnitude and duration of changes in happiness due to a windfall or catastrophe (the most recent source I have for this is Dan Ariely's Upside of Irrationality). While there is a shift of overall life satisfaction, major changes are much less impactful to your long-term happiness than you would predict (presumably due to growing familiarity, adaptation, and…
on “There is a Horse in the Apple Store” ↗It is pretty simple if you watch or read Dan Ariely: http://danariely.com/2011/10/06/upside-of-irrationality-chap... It is a known problem in behavioral economics called the identifiable victim effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identifiable_victim_effect Basically "Vivid, flesh and blood-victims are often…
on “In Zimbabwe, We Don’t Cry for Lions” ↗There's a point where diminishing returns sets in. My guess is that anything over 140k a year would result in the same, if not, lower test scores. Read the first chapter of Dan Ariely's book: The Upside of Irrationality. Like so many best selling authors, he's simply taking research and dumbing it down for everyone else to consume.
on “The Case for $320,000 Kindergarten Teachers” ↗Excellent book. Dan Ariely just released a new one, The Upside of Irrationality. It's on my to-read list.
on “Ask HN: What are you reading right now?” ↗…energy use and take action to reduce consumption. The system is based on leading behavioral economics and game mechanics research by scientific advisor Dan Ariely, author of Predictably Irrational and The Upside of Irrationality. Results from a recent pilot program show that the platform can produce an average energy savings of 20% with up to 50% in savings for top performers. See our open positions at http://utilities.simpleenergy.com/about-us/jobs
on “Ask HN: Who is hiring? (November 2013)” ↗Thank you for sharing about the Dan Ariely scam. From his wiki: > Ariely is the author of the three New York Times best selling books Predictably Irrational, The Upside of Irrationality and The Honest Truth about Dishonesty.[3] He co-produced the 2015 documentary (Dis)Honesty: The Truth About Lies.[4] You have to say, this guy has chutzpah! He's fine to promote himself as a bastion…
…less. https://bigthink.com/videos/why-we-have-more-sympathy-for-ba... Dan Ariely (who unironically isn't moved by plight of the Palestinians) also discusses this in the introduction of his book, The Upside of Irrationality.
on “Pulitzer Prize Winners 2026” ↗…narrow it down further. (I own all three as audiobooks, and I recall Simon Jones reading it, but it turns out he read all three.) • Predictably Irrational • The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty • The Upside of Irrationality
on “New academic journal only publishes 'unsurprising' research rejected by others” ↗