Pick Your Poison
READERS!
I am also a reader! But not of my own words, that would be arrogant and self-indulgent, as soon as my words leave my lips (matthew types) I never deign to look upon them again, grammar be dammared!
But Lo, the book that I am reading is entitled The Paradox of Choice and indeed it is a sign of the apocalypse. It lays out in intricate detail all the tics and tocs of the decision-making-apparatus we call the mind, and yet, although we are smart enough to see very clearly how and why we make bad decisions we will continue to make them unto oblivion.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who makes decisions and particularily to anyone in business. It is astounding. It explains for example why money-back gaurantees work. It tells us that while people will usually choose $100 over a coin-flip chance for $200, they will usually choose a coin-flip chance to lose $200 over a gauranteed loss of $100. How weird is that? The book is chock-full of delightful psychological studies like this and makes an overall argument about how the increasing amount of choice available to us is actually making us less happy because we are very poor at deciding things in our own favour.
I highly recommend it to all my readers.
There are 29 copies in the toronto public library system and there are currently 21 holds, which means if you put it on hold at your nearest branch you will get a call in a week or two telling you it is available for pick-up.
I am also a reader! But not of my own words, that would be arrogant and self-indulgent, as soon as my words leave my lips (matthew types) I never deign to look upon them again, grammar be dammared!
But Lo, the book that I am reading is entitled The Paradox of Choice and indeed it is a sign of the apocalypse. It lays out in intricate detail all the tics and tocs of the decision-making-apparatus we call the mind, and yet, although we are smart enough to see very clearly how and why we make bad decisions we will continue to make them unto oblivion.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who makes decisions and particularily to anyone in business. It is astounding. It explains for example why money-back gaurantees work. It tells us that while people will usually choose $100 over a coin-flip chance for $200, they will usually choose a coin-flip chance to lose $200 over a gauranteed loss of $100. How weird is that? The book is chock-full of delightful psychological studies like this and makes an overall argument about how the increasing amount of choice available to us is actually making us less happy because we are very poor at deciding things in our own favour.
I highly recommend it to all my readers.
There are 29 copies in the toronto public library system and there are currently 21 holds, which means if you put it on hold at your nearest branch you will get a call in a week or two telling you it is available for pick-up.
posted by Matthew Lie - Paehlke at 3:12 p.m.
2 Comments:
Was reading this sparked by your odd feeling about the watch battery deal?
Speaking of choice, I have brought home Kierkegaard's Either/Or to re-read. I read it hurriedly for a course, but for some reason have had a strong urge to go through it again for at least three weeks now.
On a more useless note, I have named a snowman Kierkegaard, but my brothers call him Leon.
"..over a guaranteed loss of *$100*"?
i'm helpful!
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