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    Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior
    Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior
    Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior
    Audiobook4 hours

    Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior

    Written by Ori Brafman and Rom Brafman

    Narrated by John Apicella

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Like the bestsellers Blink and Freakonomics, this lively narrative is a fresh view of the world, explaining the previously inexplicable and revealing hidden influences on human decision-making.

    A Harvard Business School student pays over $200 for a $20 bill. Washington, DC, commuters ignore a free subway concert by a violin prodigy. A veteran airline pilot attempts to take off without control tower clearance and collides with another plane on the runway. Why do we do the wildly irrational things we sometimes do?

    Drawing on cutting-edge research from the fields of social psychology, behavioral economics, and organizational behavior, brothers Ori and Rom Brafman reveal the dynamic forces that act on us repeatedly over time, affecting nearly every aspect of our personal and business lives. They show how we are sabotaged by loss aversion (going to great lengths to avoid perceived losses), the diagnosis bias (ignoring evidence that contradicts our initial take on a person or situation), and commitment (even when a plan isn't working, we are reluctant to change course).

    Weaving together colorful stories-about dot-com millionaires, game show audiences, NBA coaches, and the US Supreme Court-Sway tours the flip side of reason and points us toward a more rational life.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHighbridge Company
    Release dateJun 17, 2008
    ISBN9781598876307
    Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior

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    Reviews for Sway

    3.5/5

    349 ratings27 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Good narration
      Good real world examples
      Good citations to neuroscience
      Good citations to researcher & economist studies
      Length of audiobook was good.
    • 5/5
      Awesome book. The authors have done a great job in a concise manner, communicating what really sways a lot of us.
    • 4/5
      A short but fascinating book that delves into some of the irrationally reasoned impulses that impact human behavior. It keeps you interested with tragic stories and cross-cultural studies of such sways as "loss aversion" and "fairness". A quick read and invaluable when it comes to correcting errors in reasoning.
    • 4/5
      Interesting review of our irrationality. Lots of examples, threads and well tied together examples. I would have loved more useful take-aways.
    • 4/5
      I’m always curious about why people (myself included) do the goofy things they do. Sway helps explain some of that, using storytelling and a generous amount of research into the topic. As it turns out, the main reasons we behave irrationally boil down to three: loss aversion, value affirmation and diagnosis bias. The author uses storytelling to define each, and then covers the research that gives them meaning. I thought this might be Gladwell-esque and it was. The stories aren’t as extensive, but the research component is stronger than in Maldolm Gladwell’s books. I thought the author gave short shrift to what we can do to help avoid the three traps in thinking.Some of the information he presented is counter-intuitive -- like the fact that money can be a DIS-incentive to rational behavior. I found it interesting that the altruism center and the pleasure center of the brain cannot be activated at the same time. Lots of food for thought in Sway, and for that reason alone, I can recommend it. I will be likely to go back to this book again and again.
    • 5/5
      In my working life, I have observed first-hand smart, capable executives making poor business decisions. Although the common thinking is that business decisions are based on logic, such as cost-benefit analysis and business cases, in my experience, the optimal solution is not always selected. This cogent, enlightening book provides explanations of the variety of influences that may have contributed to these questionable decisions. At the beginning of each chapter, the author provides an example of an irrational decision, such as a pilot taking off in fog without clearance, and proceeds to explore the factors that may have contributed to the resulting catastrophe. The author “peels the onion,” delving into the complexities, citing numerous studies and examples in an easily understood manner. This method spurred my curiosity, and resulted in devouring the book in one sitting. I found it both entertaining and educational. Recommended to those who enjoy learning about human behavior and psychology, and highly recommended to management consultants to help their clients avoid biases in decision-making.
    • 5/5
      An engaging read that will enlighten you about why people make irrational decisions.

      The authors use real life stories to illustrate the scientific theories presented in pithy chapters with intriguing titles.

      A must read for anyone wanting to understand human nature.
    • 4/5
      A look at the psychological tendencies we humans have that lead us to make irrational decisions, with lots of examples illustrating those tendencies and their results, from an airline pilot taking off without tower clearance and crashing into another plane, to basketball coaches not putting their objectively best players on the court most often, to people who become less likely to support a toxic waste dump in their town when offered financial compensation for it.This is far from the most detailed or in-depth book on this subject. (If you want a really deep dive into many aspects of human irrationality, I recommend David Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow instead.) But with its breezy writing and vivid examples of irrational thinking that are often interesting stories in their own right, it's a very, very readable one. (Admittedly, there are one or two of those examples I might have some reservations about, but that's a fairly small quibble.) The book seems to be primarily aimed at businesspeople, who are unlikely to have much of a background in psychology, but who really do need to be aware of widespread decision-making pitfalls. For someone like that, I'd say it's a good first introduction to the subject, with some useful advice, but a merciful absence of the kind of rah-rah motivational rhetoric or annoying corporatespeak you often get in books aimed at businesspeople.
    • 3/5
      My notes from book---I think many of my decisions are linked to loss aversion...

      Hidden currents and forces include loss aversion (our tendency to go to great lengths to avoid possible losses), value attribution (our inclination to imbue a person or thing with certain qualities based on initial perceived value), and the diagnosis bias (our blindness to all evidence that contradicts our initial assessment of a person or situation).

      Negative and external feelings about old age, in other words, can actually make people physically age faster. And the effect is not limited to hearing alone. Similar studies have found that negative stereotypes about aging contribute to memory loss and cardiovascular weakness, and even reduce overall life expectancy by an average of 7.5 years.

      If you’ve ever been fortunate enough to work for a boss who values and believes in you, you’ll know that you tend to rise to meet the high expectations set for you. On the other hand, there’s nothing that will make you feel more incompetent and demoralized than a supervisor who is convinced you don’t have what it takes.
    • 3/5
      I was very divided in my opinion about the quality of this book. On the one hand, the content is like ice cream to me. I love thinking about how I, and others, think. It also stood on solid research, was breezy, illuminating and concise. On the other hand, they could not escape the shadow of Malcolm Gladwell, aping his topics and style for the majority of the book. Also, to give examples of how men respond positively to pretty women is just plain obvious and lazy. The reader deserves more serious stuff. No question though, that I enjoyed the book, because hey, at the end of the day, I like Malcolm Gladwell and who doesn't like pretty women?
    • 4/5
      I love books like this one that explain our behavior in an interesting way.
    • 3/5
      Six-word review: Lightweight, forgettable exploration of illogical behavior.Extended review:This book was not worthless. It was not a total waste of time. It was not badly written. It didn't present a complete lack of interesting points and new things to think about. I gained a useful idea, for example, with the concept of procedural justice, illustrated by an experiment in which the subjects who were offered less than half of a certain sum by their assigned partners chose to walk away from free money (thus depriving both of them) rather than accept an unequal split.However, as books on social psychology, analyses of decision-making processes, and compilations of anecdotes illustrating curious behavioral phenomena go, this particular work was undistinguished. I'm not sorry I read it, but I won't be passing out copies to all my friends and relations.
    • 4/5
      recommended for: everyone - except those who never read nonfiction, but maybe they’d appreciate this oneThis book is very readable and entertaining, and so engaging that I just kept reading and didn’t read the notes until after I’d finished the book, which is unusual for me. It’s fascinating knowlege for anyone who has an interest in universal human nature and/or group dynamics.The authors take a bunch of existing studies and do a tremendous job of presenting a cogent thesis about why human beings can exhibit such irrational behaviors. I was familiar with many of the studies cited in the book; I was even a participant in a friend's version of the “different lengths of lines” study described. I recommend this book to everyone, because it shows that even if we believe we’re logical and independent thinkers and reasonable in our decision making, and assume that we possess impeccable common sense, that there are factors at work that often make our assumptions not so. You may be surprised by the findings presented here re loss aversion, pull of commitment, value attribution, diagnostic bias, etc. Even if these concepts are not new to you, the way the information is presented here will make you think. Now that I’ve read this book, I’m confident that remembering the material presented will help me think before I act. I do think of myself as someone who thinks and makes decisions in a logical manner, although even though before I read this, I was very aware of my own aversion to loss, and also my tendency to be influenced by value attribution; the latter is something I’ve actually tried to work on with some success.I’d like to see this book assigned as an adjunct text for many psychology, sociology, economics, business, and education classes. I also hope that it’s read by every person who is in a position of power, especially our elected officials and those such as airplane pilots and others in similarly responsible jobs. Also finding it helpful would be those who work with others, including HR people (although preferably not those who will interview me for jobs since historically I do “very well” in job interviews, even though I’ve always thought they’ve had limitations.)My favorite portions of the book were the part that described the brain centers of altruism vs. pleasure, because that research was brand new information for me, and also the part where Stephen Breyer describes his process doing his work as a Supreme Court Justice, just because I found his explanation so fascinating. I also was extremely entertained by the $20 bill story, and I assume that all readers will find this story enjoyable, unless they were ever one of the final two participants in this or a similar activity.I appreciate that, while this is not a self-help book, reading the book isn’t an exercise in futility; having this information actually gives the readers tools to empower themselves.The formatting of the chapter headings is very clever too, as it ties into the sway/pull theme of the book.
    • 5/5
      fascinating fun look at human foibles would make a good non-fiction book discussion book
    • 4/5
      The key to life: be open-minded and non judgmental. That's certainly not an easy way to approach life for us humans. I'm glad the authors mentioned Zen Buddhism, because that philosophy certainly aids one in approaching the world with an uncluttered outlook.
    • 4/5
      Fascinating & very accessible, without being dumbed-down.
    • 4/5
      For all those that have read Freakanomics!

      Picks up on the latest theories in behavioural economics and shows through anecdotes and experiments how people can be swayed (hence the title) to pick or choose in certain ways.

      Blows years of economic theories out the window that people are 'rational'. They are not and economic theory should assume that people do behave this way.
    • 4/5
      Fascinating analysis of forces that sway our decision making.
    • 4/5
      Why do people make seemingly silly choices, choosing to spend hundreds of dollars to acquire something that is declared to be worth twenty or less? Why do people maintain a commitment to wrong-headed decisions even after it becomes clear that are heading to ruin? Why do we allow worry about possible losses cause us to forego easy gains, and even suffer losses? Sway is an exploration of these types of irrational behavior, and an attempt to explain why we do what we do. As an introduction to the ideas underlying behavioral economics, and the concept of predictable human irrationality, the book is decent. However, because it the treatment of the material is so superficial, for anyone already familiar with the basics of behavioral economics, this book will probably not be particularly valuable.In the opening chapter, the authors give specific examples of "irrational behavior": doctors pouring asbestos into the chest cavities of patients during open heart surgery despite the evidence that this was killing them, the decision to launch the space shuttle Challenger despite the recommendations against it from the O-ring manufacturers, physicians sending a repeatedly a child home from the emergency room without checking her because they had decided that her mother was just being hysterical. And so on. It is this impulse - the irrational attachments that humans have to decisions they have made - that sits at the core of human irrational behavior, and serves as the starting point for the book.The authors use the Tenerife air disaster as their primary example of irrational behavior, trying to explain how an experienced pilot, the head of KLM's safety program, could make a series of almost inexplicably poor decisions that would lead to an on-runway collision costing the lives of hundreds of people, including everyone aboard his aircraft. This example is returned to several times in the book, as the litany of bad decisions illustrates each of the major causes of irrational decision making: loss aversion, diagnosis bias, group bias, and so on. By such disparate means as the egg and orange juice purchasing habits of American consumers, the relative playing time given to NBA players, the voting patterns of audience members in various versions of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, and a number of other examples, the authors illustrate all of the various psychological forces that result in humans making seemingly stupid decisions.Given the subject matter of the book, comparisons to Dan Ariely's Predictably Irrational and The Upside of Irrationality, and it is when viewed in this light that Sway comes up somewhat short. There is nothing particularly wrong with the book, but I suspect that the fact that the examples used by the authors to illustrate their points were almost all second hand accounts for it. In Ariely's books he discusses much the same psychological territory, but uses examples drawn from experiments that either he or graduate students under his supervision have conducted, which gives his books an immediacy that Sway simply lacks. This element also allows Ariely's books to be much more precise when illustrating particular quirks of human behavior, because the experiments in question were specifically designed to identify and test particular points. This does not mean that when the Brafmans cite the "love bridge" experiment to illustrate the effect that anxiety and adrenaline have on sexual interest that they are not making a salient point, but rather that because they are relating an experiment second hand, that it seems less compelling than if they were relating experiments that they had set up and observed directly.The corollary of this lack of direct involvement is that the Brafmans seem less able to use their observations concerning human nature to make suggestions for possible uses for the particularly human idiosyncrasies that they identify and examine. Whereas Ariely's studies concerning the human propensity to cheat were driven by a desire to understand why the executives at Enron engaged in the behavior that led to the collapse of the company, and further to figure out what sort of system could be put in place to discourage such behavior in the future, the Brafmans seem to have no prescriptive suggestions as to how one might prevent a recurrence of the Tenerife disaster, and don't even seem to think that such suggestions might be important or interesting to the reader.Even so, the strange patterns that the authors identify are interesting and carry the book, especially in the latter chapters where they focus on the psychology of group behavior and the distinction between social and economic decisions (and the impossibility of the two to function in conjunction with as opposed to in alternative with one another). While Sway doesn't break any new ground, or offer any new insights to anyone who has had contact with the field of behavioral economics and the study of decision-making, it is a well-written and very readable introduction to those fields.
    • 2/5
      so this book took a couple hours to read and had overlapping material to "predictably irrational". which was fine, all these books are pretty much addressing the same quirky sort of pop-psychology-statistics-business crap. but i think i liked this one a bit more; maybe the examples were less laboratory-based (though both books use EXACTLY the same examples at times) and felt a bit more real -- e.g. is it weird that French or Russian audiences are dramatically different than American ones in helping out contestants on "who wants to be a millionaire"?? i would say no. but then....what? Why would 56% of the French audience say that the sun revolved around the earth? Are they stupid?Hence: quirky-pop-psychology-statistics-business crap.
    • 3/5
      Find something half a dozen or so interesting experiments inpyschology, write them up in a refreshing style and voila,a new book.This particular example of the genre was well written and a very easy read.
    • 3/5
      This is another decent sort of nonfiction book. It's about a subject that few people deeply acknowledge - how irrational they are. Sure, you think you make irrational decisions about cake and mates and so on, but the book is about how the deep reasons why you are irrational. An important and interesting subject.But this book is just skimming along the surface of deep waters. The formula is a common one - the gladwellian collection of stories about people who make bad decisions and then a discussion of the principles embodied in that bad decision. There's no real coherent theme though, no understanding of the reasons, no way to apply this new knowledge to ones life. Mainly, it's a collection of stories about people making bad decisions with a little science dabbed on top.There's better stuff out there. On the other hand, it's accessible and might get people interested in the fascinating working of their minds. You could do worse, but you could do much, much better.
    • 4/5
      This book was an entertaining and informational read. It's a short book that uses interesting studies and anecdotes to explain why people behave irrationally. The topics range from the NBA draft to auctioning money to mental disorder diagnosis. It's similar to Freakonomics in writing style and variety of topics.
    • 4/5
      A quick and decent read. Not as in depth as Freakonomics or Stumbling on Happiness, but a decent review of behavioral economics and human decision making. Often I wanted to explore the research a little further, but the lack of depth in cited works will force me to do a little research on my own. Oh well.
    • 3/5
      We are not as rational as we think we are, and this book tells us how we are affected by forces we don't even know about. Interesting and a quick read. It makes me want to go back and reread it to set it in my brain.
    • 3/5
      Review of “Sway : The irresistible pull of irrational behavior” by Ori & Rom Barfman, 2008, Doubleday.This book is a fairly easy read that would appeal to anyone interested in why people behave they way they do (especially oneself when irrational behavior is recognized in hindsight). While reading the book I sometimes forgot which book I was reading since this book is very similar to another book also published this year, “Predictably irrational: The hidden forces that shape our decisions” by Dan Ariely (HarperCollins, 2008). Whereas Ariely focused on how we make our decisions, this book focuses on how we are influence by others or how we structure our decision-making. However, even with the overlap each book covers topics not addressed in the other and uses different (and interesting) examples of concepts covered in both. Throughout each book, the material covered is very interesting because we all fall into these ways of thinking without even knowing we are not behaving rationally – thinking we are. Along the way when reading the book, the reader is given many examples that they can relate to as well as warnings on when we might be led astray through cultural norms of behavior. Among the issues discussed are:•Our tendency to avoid a loss regardless of the rational expected outcome. Rationally, we believe we are actually maximizing the gain.•Our commitment to our past decision (staying the course) regardless of mounting evidence stacking against it. •Value attribution – “our tendency of giving someone or something certain qualities based on perceived value, rather than on objective data.” These chapters include some interesting research studies on buyer behavior in different pricing situations. •Diagnosis bias – “our propensity to label people, ideas, or things based on our initial opinions of them” (closely related to value attribution). Included here is ignoring objective data and giving credence to irrelevant factors. •Peer-pressure in groups (easily broken if someone else is willing to first break ranks). This section includes interesting discussions on group decision-making.As might be expected, many of these ways we are influenced are well known by marketers and can be seen (if we are looking) in much of the advertising directed to us. However, some difficulty is encountered when faced with understanding other cultures which may have slightly different belief and value structures driving their worldview. Other than raising this issue, the book does not go further in detailing more than a couple examples. While I can highly recommend this book, I wish the authors would have summarized the key points in some way that would help the reader find the key issues later. Also missing is an in-depth discussion on how we might change our behavior after awareness is attained in reading the book. This action step is left to the reader, piecing together examples used to illustrate the issue. The book has no photos nor other exhibits illustrating key concepts other than a topic flow introduced at the beginning of each chapter. The only problem with this illustration was its limitation to fully explain the chapter flow and was of little value in trying to summarize the chapter’s key points later.The authors have a background in organizational behavior and psychology that is clearly evident throughout the book.
    • 4/5
      I was not at all in the mood for another non-fiction book about human behavior when my husband asked if I wanted to read this one before he returned it to the library. I half-heartedly decided to scan a few pages before saying no, but I was quickly sucked in to a fictionalized re-creation of the last few hours in the cockpit of the KLM flight responsible for the 1977 Tenerife crash that claimed the lives of 583 people. Though this book looks at research from social psychology, behavioral economics, and organizational behavior in order to explain why humans often make highly irrational choices, it does so in a compulsively readable fashion. The authors are good storytellers who know how to engage the reader as they explain surprising findings from a whole host of diverse research. Though I was already familiar with how fear of loss and commitment to a position can have devastating effects on investors, I enjoyed reading about how these in-built habits played out on the football field and on anthropological digs. People responsible for hiring others will benefit from the chapter explaining the flaws of the "first-date" style interview, and pretty much everyone would do well to read the stunning findings on how negative attitudes about aging can affect one's health. The chapter in which the authors discuss how our innate capacity for altruism can be undermined by financial incentives is also fascinating, as is the authors' discussion with Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer on the impact of a lone dissenting voice on our highest court. In the epilogue, the authors summarize their main points and offer a few hints on how to avoid being negatively impacted by some of the factors most likely to sway us to make questionable choices. Though I'm not certain how easy it will actually be to overcome the multiple evolutionary habits that cause us to make irrational choices, it was still terribly fun to read.