The Upside of Irrationality: The Unexpected Benefits of Defying Logic at Work and at Home
by Dan Ariely, 2010

Walking a tight line between memoir and research, this book manages to explain many of the impulses behind some of our irrational actions. We try harder when our work is meaningful to others. We go out of our way to punish people who didn’t act fairly. We become ineffective and risk-averse when offered big salaries and bonuses. We overvalue things we made with our own hands. We respond to specific pleas for aid but not to general ones. Ariely draws from his life experience, especially from a series of hospital events after he experienced a severe burn as a teenager, to motivate each idea. Much of the research presented involves simple laboratory experiments that attempt to distill the essence of emotions or choices out of complex issues. The results are fairly believable, with the caveat that real-world behavior is often much more complicated. Interesting read; I listened to it on tape. One downside of listening on tape was missing out on the referenced “figures” in the text, which was occasionally annoying.