Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior

Much of this material is available elsewhere, but never in such an engaging style. Well-written, always on topic, full of intruiging research, and easy to digest, Sway is hard to put down. It's a quick read that makes you think.

Great Book! Offers tremendous insight into human behavior, expressed in a style that is easy to read. Anyone in business, educators, parents... if you live with or work around people, this is a must read.

Great start and very entertaining early on, but the authors are confusing irrational with non-monetary. According to the authors, it's "irrational" to make a fair decision if it results in a monetary loss. That's not even logical. Assuming that a person cares more about things other than just money, it can be entirely rational to make a decision that doesn't maximize financial gain. I'd say they have some fun ideas, but can't really back them up with facts and logic. Ariely's "Predictably Irrational" is a much better read (and much more logical) on this topic.

Excellent book that does an amazing job detailing the irrational decisions we make and the forces that influence those decisions. The authors give well-chosen, real-life examples through history to demonstrate situations where we as humans fall into the same trap of making irrational choices. This book will really get you thinking and evaluating the decisions you make in your own life.

I was looking for something with a little more scientific support for its assertions, but this book is more of a loose collection of stories around some central themes. No foot notes, no experts, no studies sited, and no evidence that would contradict what the point the author was trying to make. It wasn't poorly written, at times a little engaging, but the lack of hard facts left me feeling a little let down. It killed some time on the subway, but I really didn't get that much out of it.

"Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior", by Ori & Rom Brafman, Doubleday, NY 2008. ISBN: 978-0-385-52438-4, HC 206/181 Notes 13 pgs., Index 6 pgs., 8 ½" x 6".

A short book by two brothers, one a psychologist, written for general consumption. Basically, we are told that hidden mental influences "sway" our decision-making so the writers take great effort to supply those underlying influences, weaving and inter-weaving stories of tragedy, etc., with underlying mechanisms they recite as responsible. Some of their conjectures appear factual or possible, but in others we would have us fantasize at great length to believe their explanations of these mysteries.

All in all, one would have to be swayed excessively to believe these apparent concoctions have verifiable truths; for recounting a couple of interesting psychological clinical studies is not sufficient to make them come true, as that is magical thinking. Their general treatment of psychology is superficial, exuding an excess of simplicity. Both the human mind and behavior are complex and difficult to predict. If simplistic, we would not need to have so many psychologists, psychiatrist and social workers dealing with the populace.

All in all, their writings may have some importance, but the present work is not designed for anything more than entertainment.

This is a compilation of research and articles you've likely seen elsewhere. The authors tried to put a new slant on it by tying one into another, to show some kind of connectivity. Wait for the movie, then don't go see it.

This is yet a another volume in the contemporary genre of books based on a single insight. In this case, the insight is that people often make predictably irrational decisions. This is interesting, and the authors assemble several anecdotes supporting their thesis, but a bit of judicious editing could have distilled their argument into a brief essay. Of course this would have been a less profitable format; one suspects the authors of exploiting an irrational bias favoring books over articles.

I am fascinated by the neurological shortcuts that have evolved and which I believe make us poorly suited to the modern world we have created. Consequently, I was excited to read this book. However, even though it is well-written and easy to follow, I found the arguments a little too facile to hold on to. For instance, the overarching theme is that we all have built-in flaws, and that awareness of them will help us devise programs to overcome them. At no point in the book, though, is it convincingly shown that awareness can have a broad, lasting, positive effect. In fact, some of the examples (optimal interviewing technique, for instance) show the exact opposite. Additionally, I found the stylistic "outlines" at the beginning of each chapter somewhere on the continuum between distracting and annoying. Some of the anecdotes used to explain the different "sways" - a term that I still think would have been better expressed as "bias" - are interesting on their own; the section on "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" displaying cultural differences in cognitive bias was fascinating. Overall, though, the book felt like a series of blog posts with no believable lasting conclusion. Nevertheless, for those who like the Malcolm Gladwell style of subject explication, this is an accessible book. For anyone looking for a deep discussion of cognitive bias, go elsewhere. (I realize as a write this that I may have fallen into one type of "sway" by giving it only three stars, since I clearly had expectations that were not met but which perhaps were unrealistic. Consequently, I may only have noted parts of the book that failed me rather than recognizing evidence in support of the opposite conclusion. I learned about that potential bias in Psychology 101, though, and did not need this book's reminder.)

a surprisingly good book based on research papers as foundations to study our inner driver that actually counters with the previous-read book about intuition. This book implicates our intuition can be detrimental such as combing aversion to loss and commitment to loss; our first instinct can be misled by wrong label or value attribution (ignore the obvious), bipolar epidemic, chameleon effect, often fairness and values are perceived so drastically differently from different countries, rewards can actually backfire originally good intentions, pleasure center vs altruism center (cannot co-exist in our brain) and finally dissenter/blocker/initiator situations are highly recommended to be coexisted...very fluid book and very easy to read..

This book was recommended by Mr. Divakar Kaza when I was discussing with him about the Honest Truth about Dishonesty. A fascinating journey into the hidden psychological influences that derail our decision-making, Sway will change the way you think about the way you think.
Why is it so difficult to sell a plummeting stock or end a doomed relationship? Why do we listen to advice just because it came from someone “important”? Why are we more likely to fall in love when there’s danger involved? In Sway, renowned organizational thinker Ori Brafman and his brother, psychologist Rom Brafman, answer all these questions and more. Drawing on cutting-edge research from the fields of social psychology, behavioral economics, and organizational behavior, Sway reveals dynamic forces that influence every aspect of our personal and business lives, including loss aversion (our tendency to go to great lengths to avoid perceived losses), the diagnosis bias (our inability to reevaluate our initial diagnosis of a person or situation), and the “chameleon effect” (our tendency to take on characteristics that have been arbitrarily assigned to us).
Sway introduces us to the Harvard Business School professor who got his students to pay $204 for a $20 bill, the head of airline safety whose disregard for his years of training led to the transformation of an entire industry, and the football coach who turned conventional strategy on its head to lead his team to victory. We also learn the curse of the NBA draft, discover why interviews are a terrible way to gauge future job performance, and go inside a session with the Supreme Court to see how the world’s most powerful justices avoid the dangers of group dynamics.
One of the suggestions that seemed very reasonable to me is a better approach to hiring employees.  They make a convincing case that the unstructured interview is a very bad way to evaluate if someone will be a good employee or not.  They suggest that instead you select your employees using aptitude tests.  For those who are most successful, use the “interview” to sell them on the company
Every once in a while, a book comes along that not only challenges our views of the world but changes the way we think. In Sway, Ori and Rom Brafman not only uncover rational explanations for a wide variety of irrational behaviors but also point readers toward ways to avoid succumbing to their pull.
In Malcolm Gladwell’s books he fits interesting tidbits into a larger model he develops over the course of the book.  In Freakonomics they jump around unconnected, but interesting, facts and domains. This book, in between the two, wasn’t executed as well.  While each element was connected to irrational behavior, it was hard to connect the ideas beyond that (and anyone could fill a book with anecdotes about irrational behavior).

Another addition to the library of behavioral economics. The Brafmans review loss aversion (our tendency to go to great lengths to avoid possible losses), value atribution (our inclination to imbue a person or thing with certain qualities based upon initial perceived value), and diagnosis bias (our blindness to all evidence that contradicts our initial assessment of a person or situation).
The most interesting study they cite involves giving men biographies and pictures of women they are about to speak to over the phone. The men record their 'expectations' of whether these women will be social or cold, engaged or not, shy or gregarious. There is, of course, one catch: the photos of the women are assigned randomly, and can be divided into 'beautiful' or 'plain.' As we might expect, the men believe the beautiful women will be outgoing, and the plain women shy. But here's where it gets interesting: the scientists take the recorded conversations, delete the man's side of the conversation and only leave the woman's contribution. The recording of each woman is played to a third, independent group that has not seen the (false) pictures or the biographies. This last group categorized the women into outgoing or shy, AND IT MATCHED THE EXPECTATIONS OF THE MEN. That is, the third group's analysis matched decisions of men THEY NEVER MET OR HEARD based upon (false) pictures THEY NEVER SAW. When we interact with other people, we take upon ourselves certain roles based upon how they approach us. If someone is told that you are a cold person, they will have a tendency to treat you as if you were a cold person, and you have a tendency to respond as a cold person. Sway has plenty of interesting observations that you can use in your everyday life.

Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior by Ori and Ram Brofman is a very broad overview of several sociological attributes that may affect behavior, causing people to react and behave in unexpected ways. The Brofmans provide a multitude of anecdotal evidence to explain these topics and to demonstrate how they might be observed in everyday life. While this book isn't very effective at explaining how to combat irrational behavior, it does succeed in introducing the common attributes in an engaging way that might lead the reader to further research or study of these issues.

Initially, Sway focuses on three main processes that can trigger irrational behavior: loss aversion, commitment, and value attribution. Loss aversion relates to our tendency to persevere in situations to avoid additional loss, even if it might have made more sense to remove ourselves much sooner and suffer a minimal loss. For example, a dwindling stock should be sold right away for a small amount of loss, but people tend to hold on to the stock longer in case it possibly increases in value again. Commitment refers to our tendency to stick with a behavior or idea, even if something else might make more sense, just because we have committed to that path of action. You might see people in the workplace that have committed themselves to doing a task a particular way and refuse to change their process, even if it might take less time and effort. Value attribution relates to how valuable we perceive an item or service. For example, people tend to see designer bags and clothes as more valuable because they cost more than everyday clothing. Why wouldn't you charge more if it is a better product? Value aversion can be used to blindside the public to an item's true quality because we are conditioned to assumed high priced items equal higher quality and therefore, a higher value.

Sway soon transitions into more sociologically-focused attributes such as the diagnosis bias, altruism vs. self-interest, and fairness. Each of these attributes focuses on ideas and qualities that have become recognized in our society and how they are used to influence our behavior. For instance, labeling is very prevalent in our society. We label people by their defining characteristics and can't seem to see them in any other way. The Brofmans used the NBA draft picks to illustrate this example; players picked as early draft picks almost always received more playing time than players picked later in the draft, even if their other player statistics were equal or worse. The coaches label the early draft picks as better players and continue to treat them as such even if their quantifiable statistics do not support it. In situations where we have a choice between altruism and self-interest, most people will act in a way that supports their self-interest. This is the basic idea behind why we do not work for free. One very good takeaway from this principal is that you should reward after a positive action or behavior has been completed, not before. Once you create the expectation of reward, people stop working for good work's sake and instead begin working for the reward only. If you then take the reward away, the positive behavior will cease. Fairness is a fairly simple idea; people want to feel they are being treated properly and that their opinions and ideas are being valued. People want to be listened to and heard, even if nothing changes.

Group behavior is also touched on in the second half of Sway and is especially successful in covering the importance of group dissention. Our natural tendency to go with the group can be destructive overall. If someone has a valid point, or even an invalid point that might lead to questioning other more constructive issues, their reluctance to speak against the popular opinion hurts the group as a whole. The authors present research that shows even one other dissenter can cause bolster others in the group into offering their true feelings. These people no longer feel like they are standing alone and, even if their opinion differs from the dissenter, are more likely to provide their actual input to the group. Dissenters are important in group discussions because they open other avenues to communication and allow everyone to express their views.

The book closes with a short epilogue that is intended to provide advice for counteracting the discussed irrational behaviors; this is where the book tends to fall short. The strategies presented are too simplistic to be truly effective and the short page count did not allow the authors to go into any specific depth. Along these same lines, the stories that the authors chose to demonstrate their topics, while entertaining, were sometimes suspect. They have been presented in such an abbreviated form that it becomes difficult to see how the authors drew causation conclusions instead of correlation. Presenting more statistically-proven studies and fewer colloquial examples would strengthen the authors' research and lend more creditability to their conclusions.

Sway succeeds as an introduction to irrational behavior and hopefully the reader will be better able to recognize these behaviors in their everyday lives. Unfortunately, it does the reader a disservice by not discussing potential problem solving strategies in more depth. That said, it is a quick read with a light narrative style that readers with little to no background in sociology/psychology should find engaging. This book would be perfect for the reader looking to begin learning about behavior patterns and societal impacts, with an eye toward more intensive study in the future.

The Brafman brothers' Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior is another in the crop of compulsively readable behavioral economics books that have been published over the last five or six years. Like others of the type--Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner's Freakonomics, Dan Ariely's Predictably Irrational, Chip and Dan Heath's Switch, Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point--the book is written in commendably lucid prose. (I am in fact beginning to think all of these books were written by the same person! They are similarly organized, and the writing style across them is also very alike. They're a pleasure to read, but I'm confused by the similarity.) The Brafmans dissect real-life examples of irrational behavior to uncover the forces at work in bad decision-making--our aversion to loss, our commitment to a preconception, and so on. The book begins, for example, with a discussion of an airline disaster on the island of Tenerife in 1977 that killed more than 500 people. (The accident was caused by the pilot of one plane--a man who had recently taught classes on airline safety--attempting to take off without clearance.) The Brafmans also discuss the methodology and results of a bunch of social experiments. That humans act irrationally due to our aversion to loss, for example, is demonstrated by a Harvard professor's classroom antics. On the first day of class he holds an auction for a $20 bill; because of the auction's peculiar rules, it routinely ends with two students in the class irrationally bidding far more than $20 for the twenty--the record is $204. It's all very fascinating stuff. As with the similar books named above, I enjoyed reading Sway immensely, but I suspect that I won't long remember much in the way of details: in my experience these books go down easy but don't linger in my head for long. My fault, I'm sure, and I don't mind at all since they're so damn readable.

-- Debra Hamel

The Brothers Brafman are like the Brothers Heath (Chip and Dan, co-authors of Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others and forthcoming Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard) in that they seem to have an insatiable curiosity about what may, at first, seem to be aberrational human behavior but is in fact commonplace. In their book Sway, the Brafmans seek answers to questions such as these: Why would skilled and experienced physicians make decisions that contradict their years of training? What psychological forces underlie our own irrational behaviors? How do these forces creep up on us? When and why are we most vulnerable to them? How do they shape our business and personal relationships? When and how do they put finances, even our lives, at risk? And why don't we realize when we're being swaying?

The Brafmans obviously have a sense of humor. How else to explain chapter titles such as "The Swamp of Commitment" in which they discuss how Florida's then football coach, Steve Spurrier, dominated the SEC conference because the other coaches in the conference were loss averse and committed to a "grind-it-out-and-hold-in-to-the-ball offensive strategy. He played to win; they played not to lose. He introduced the "Fun-n-Gun" offense that scored more points in less time and attracted better recruits. In anther chapter, "The Hobbit and the Missing Link," they focus on a precocious young Dutch student named Eugene Dubois (1858-1940) who, after earning his degree in medicine, marriage, starting a career as well as a family, decided to seek what was then believed to be the missing link between apes and the more humanlike Neanderthals. He found it in the East Indies but both he and his discovery was largely ignored. Why? Because his contemporaries were firmly committed to a certain view of evolution that Dubois' discovery challenged. Moreover, "there was another force at play. Here's where commitment merges with the sway of `value attribution': our tendency to imbue someone or something with certain qualities based on perceived value, rather than on objective data."(This is one of the eight deceptions that Phil Rosenzweig discusses in his book, The Halo Effect.) The Brafmans also cite a more contemporary example of how value attribution works and how it swayed the anthropological community. In Washington, D.C. on a January morning in 2007, Joshua Bell (one of the world's finest violinists) performed for 43 minutes in the L'Enfant Plaza subway station. "Here was one of best musicians in the world playing in the subway station for free, but no one seemed to care."

As Ori Brafman and Rom Brafman explain in the Preface, their objective in this book is to explore "several of the psychological forces that derail rational thinking. Wherever we looked - across different sectors, countries, and cultures - we saw different people being swayed in very similar ways. We're all susceptible to the sway of irrational behaviors. But by better understanding the deductive pull of these forces, we'll be less likely to fall victim to them in the future." They fully achieve this objective with a book I consider to be a brilliant achievement. Bravo!

Those who share my high regard for this book are urged to check out Ori Brafman's The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations (co-authored with Rod Beckstrom) and the aforementioned books by the Brothers Heath as well as Dan Ariely's Predictably Irrational, Martin Lindstrom's Buyology, Gregory Berns's Iconoclast, Roger Martin's The Opposable Mind, Leonard Mlodinow's The Drunkard's Walk, Nassim Nicholas Taleb's The Black Swan, and Joseph Murphy's The Power of Your Subconscious Mind.

Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior by Ori & Rom Brafman (brothers) is a current business book. Loaded with examples to explain their main points, basically we as humans are drawn to irrational behaviour much to our own detriment. For example, people often see the stock they are invested in going down and some other offering going up, so they will sell theirs at a loss to buy the other. In the end they are buying high, selling low; which is a terrible investing plan but happens all the time. So if you think rationally, this is a great book to show you how stupid we humans can be.

The one point they do not make is that sometimes irrational behaviour pays off so tremendously it keeps leading us back - like gambling.

One thing discussed was the principle of value attribution. If we deem something not worthy, then we tend to dismiss it whether it is rational or not. The below experiment was mentioned. The Washington Post asked Joshua Bell, one of the world's top violinist (and his 3.5 million dollar Stradivarius) to dress in jeans and a baseball hat, go down to the subway at rush hour, and play an impromptu concert. Would people recognize the beauty and greatness regardless of the circumstances. 45 minutes later the answer was a resounding NO. Seven people stopped and he made $32 in change (out of over a 1000 who walked by). This is a guy who had just held a sold out concert for the Washington DC elite the night before in the Library of Congress

This book covers roughly the same behavioral economics territory considered in such recent books as Dan Ariely's Predictably Irrational, Revised and Expanded Edition: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions and Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness. It had been stalking me on my the store recommendations queue for at least a year, but I had resisted it successfully until this weekend, when I came across it in the bookstore and finally succumbed.

I'm glad I did. I wasn't expecting to learn anything new, necessarily, but neither was I expecting a book as funny and engaging as this turned out to be. The Brafman brothers are whip smart, enthusiastic guides on this brilliant overview of recent research in behavioral science. As far as I can tell, throughout the book they are engaged in summarizing results of other people's investigations (unlike Ariely or Sunstein & Cass, who are often reporting on their own, or colleagues', work). They do it very well - clearly, succinctly, and with great examples. The book doesn't discuss ways to trigger more honest behavior, as Ariely did in "Predictably Irrational", neither does it contain the kind of discussion of implications for sensible public policy that was such a strength of "Nudge". It does, however, provide a very lucid discussion of pitfalls to avoid in group decision-making.

My favorite story in the book has to be that of the French "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" audience who were apparently so disgusted by the contestant's inability to answer the question "What revolves around the earth?" that they figured he deserved to be booted, so that 56% gave the answer "the sun". It worked. Hapless Henri took the bait and was kicked off. (Russian audiences are apparently the worst on WWTBAM; regularly providing the wrong answer when polled. There is speculation that this stems from a broadly held Russian view that anyone trying to get ahead by amassing great personal wealth is, by definition, behaving anti-socially, and thus deserves to be cut down to size (the tall poppy syndrome at work)).

This is an interesting and well-executed book.

This summarizes in one little package many of the Malcolm Gladwell/Nassim Taleb ideas about brain tendencies and shortcuts that lead us into error unless we recognize them and find ways to counter them. The authors provide studies showing that rational decisionmaking is skewed by both intrinsic brain tendencies/hormones and by shortcuts that have become unreasonably entrenched. As to inherent tendencies:

(1) we make irrational decisions based on the adrenaline spillover effect of otherwise irrelevant emotional surroundings;

(2) we are overly deterred by small losses;

(3) our perception of procedural fairness becomes the driving force in our evaluation of most transactions with other human beings with the actual substantive outcome being secondary (i.e., we are more concerned with whether someone else in the transaction is behaving badly according to our own particular social norms than with the outcome for us);

(4) we are unreasonably influenced by the herd effect (we need to hear at least one dissenter/blocker before we can muster up the courage to go against the herd);

(5) we make irrational (meaning personally uneconomic) decisions based on altruism; and

(6) we make bad decisions based on a perceived forthcoming personal reward.

Rational decisionmaking is also skewed by shortcuts designed to assist us with the overwhelming amount of sensory perception and data that we face every day that have become entrenched rules themselves:

(1) an unwarranted faith in our initial impressions;

(2) the inertia of the initial label we give to something or someone, which often continues to govern regardless of the actual facts ("diagnosis bias");

(3) the inertia of our existing commitment to a specific view; and

(4) value attributed based on context rather than the thing's intrinsic value; in other words, value of a thing is perceived erroneously based on the shortcut of the price, appearance or context.

Another interesting point that the authors support with studies is that people tend to live up objectively speaking to others' expectations and their own, and live "down" to negative expectations etc.

You can of course nitpick some of what is presented: for example, the explanation given for why people did not stop to listen to Joshua Bell in the DC metro at 7:51 am on a cold January morning in 2007 is implausible. That had more to do with the fact that (1) people are on a schedule and need to get to work (there would have been a different response in the evening rush); (2) few Americans have the ear to distinguish a good violinist and need the surroundings of a concert hall to decide that Bell plays well (there would have been a different response in London where random commuters would be more culturally sophisticated); and (3) even most concertgoers can't distinguish between Bell, a truly great violinist as of 2010, and, for example, Izhak Perlman, who can no longer play well due to post-polio syndrome, even in a concert hall (both of them get standing ovations wherever they go). In other words, the failure to listen to Bell bore less relation to the fact that he was dressed in jeans and a baseball cap (what the authors term "value attribution") than to the inability of most people to distinguish great classical violin playing from background noise.

That said, while this is a little book, it provides large returns.

Why do we do things that defy rational logic? We accept advice from a "consultant" that we rejected from our own staff. We continue to cling to a course of action long after it's been shown to be wrong or dangerous. Ori Brafman and Rom Brafman look at this universal human phenomenon in their book Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior. Part of the solution is knowing there's a problem, and I think that the two authors do a good job in pointing out where sway comes into play. Once you recognize those situations, it's possible to step back and take the emotions out of the equation.

Contents:
Preface; Anatomy of an Accident; The Swamp of Commitment; The Hobbit and the Missing Link; Michael Jordan and the First-Date Interview; The Bipolar Epidemic and the Chameleon Effect; In France, the Sun Revolves Around the Earth; Compensation and Cocaine; Dissenting Justice; Epilogue; Acknowledgments; Notes; Index

One of the first stories that sets the theme of the book is the Tenerife airport accident in 1977 where 584 people lost their lives due to "pilot error." What made this even more unusual is that the captain of the plane that caused the accident was the head of KLM's safety program. But when the story unfolds, you see that he got locked into a mindset and a course of action that caused him to disregard every safety check in the book. Even worse, his co-pilot did little to intervene because of the general attitude that prevents an open challenge of a captain's actions and decisions. While everyone knew the actions were wrong and dangerous, they continued down the path, leading to a tragic outcome. The Tenerife incident led to changes to overcome the sway of the captain, creating steps that everyone in the cockpit is allowed to follow if they think that someone is wrong.

While Tenerife is a dramatic example of sway, there are other situations that occur in our everyday lives. The authors discuss how job interviews are often an ineffective way to choose someone for a position (we're swayed by irrelevant information or the "attractiveness" of the candidate), how medical diagnoses are often a case of getting locked into a subset of symptoms (doctors are swayed by their expertise areas and what they've been trained to see), and why we refuse to cut our stock losses as we "know" things will rebound (we're swayed more by a potential loss than an unreasonable risk). In these cases and others discussed in the book, you get a good look at why we make certain decisions that seem senseless in hindsight. Once you recognize the factors in play, you might be able to avoid the outcomes that you don't want.

Sway is an easy and relatively quick read, and comes down solidly on the side of practicality. Unlike some books that delve into how the mind works, it doesn't get bogged down in psycho-babble and theory. I took away a number of tips and ideas on how to apply these concepts in my own life, and with any luck I'll actually see myself in those situations next time. Sway is worth reading, and might well be the difference in a few of your own important situations.

Disclosure:
Obtained From: Library
Payment: Borrowed

This book makes for a fine introduction to irrational behavior in human beings. Ori and Rom Brafman introduce cognitive biases such as the diagnosis bias, loss aversion and the value attribution error. They do a nice job of showing how these biases affect people in their everyday lives and why they are relevant. However, if you are already familiar with psychological biases then this book will seem a bit basic to you. For example, I think Dan Ariely's book Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions or Joseph T. Hallinan's book Why We Make Mistakes: How We Look Without Seeing, Forget Things in Seconds, and Are All Pretty Sure We Are Way Above Average are more comprehensive on this subject.

That being said, there were several interesting things covered in this book that you may not find elsewhere. One of which was what the authors called the "Bazerman Auction." This happens when people become committed to a lost cause. The example they use is LBJ and the Vietnam War. When the power of "loss aversion" and "commitment" converge they can be a devastating combination.

In conclusion, I enjoyed this book - even though it is quite short - and would recommend it to anyone unfamiliar with cognitive biases. I would also recommend reading any of these four following books if the subject matter appeals to you: The Mind of the Market: How Biology and Psychology Shape Our Economic Lives,Why Choose This Book?: How We Make Decisions,How We Decide or You Are What You Choose: The Habits of Mind that Really Determine How We Make Decisions.

We have an insatiable appetite for books about human behavior, especially when they are highly accessible and use examples from the worlds of business, sports, and entertainment. That's what we get in Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior. The ISBN database offers the classification "Differential & developmental psychology" -- quite a mouthful for a book that I would have put on the "Business Lite" shelf.

"Sway" discusses "the psychological undercurrents that influence decision-making." The grounding case in the book is the 1977 KLM-Pan Am air crash in Tenerife, in which an esteemed airline pilot with an impeccable record made some bad decisions; the devastating result was the worst accident in aviation history. Coming back repeatedly to this disaster, the authors, brothers Ori and Rom Brafman, lay out some basic psychological effects and illustrate them with entertaining studies.

It's LOSS AVERSION, they say, that influences an investor to ride a stock price down to a tiny fraction of its earlier level. When a renowned violinist plays his Stradivarius on the street and nobody stops to listen, when research subjects are given a drink to increase their mental acuity and asked to PAY for it (and the more they pay, the higher they score), when a Coney Island entrepreneur can't sell his five-cent hot dogs in a ten-cent market -- it's due to VALUE ATTRIBUTION, or the tendency to be influenced by a belief (however arbitrary) that establishes itself in our minds.

Have you ever wondered how the U.S. Supreme Court conducts its deliberations? A behind-the-scenes view is one of several examples of how a single dissenter in a group--a "blocker" or "devil's advocate"--can improve the decision of the group, even if the dissenter's position is not correct. By establishing a culture that allows and even encourages dissenting opinions, an organization improves the likelihood that all possibilities will be explored and "tunnel vision" errors avoided. Research in this area has improved safety in the aviation and medical fields.

"Sway" may not be wildly original, but it's interesting and engaging. Some of the stories are very entertaining; for example, did you know that when "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" contestants in different countries poll the audience, cultural factors influence how the audience behaves? Besides the entertainment value, there is a vivid reminder to be aware of the forces that influence us and the people around us. Four stars for entertainment value; a light but well-crafted little book.

Linda Bulger, 2009

This is an interesting, quick, thought-provoking read. The authors highlight the forces and situations that lead us to make really bad decisions -- our failure to realize that sunk costs are sunk costs, our tendency to irrationally cling to our bad decisions, once made, in hopes that things will take a 180 degree turn. The authors show how we are disproportionately influenced by anecdotal evidence rather than looking at aggregate, statistical data. One example can be more influential than a thousand data points.

Particularly interesting to me were the discussions of cultural influences on decision-making. In the US version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, for example, the audience poll yields the correct answer 90% of the time. French and Russian audiences aren't so magnaminous. Russian audiences are not likely to give the correct answer -- perhaps out of a skepticism for wealth -- and French audiences enforce a sense of meritocracy -- they will not give the correct answer to an easy/obvious question -- though they may be more willing to help out on a challenging question. French audiences won't reward poor players -- if the player is too stupid to know the anwer to an easy question, he doesn't deserve to be a millionaire.

Another interesting example of cultural influences on decision-making were illustrated by requiring participants to divide a certain amount of money fairly between themselves and another person -- if the other person accepted the division, both the giver and the receiver would keep the money. If not, both went home empty-handed. American paricipants were most inclined to split the money 50/50; the giver frequently refused to accepted a disproportionately smaller split. In other cultures, however, participants would split the booty 90/10, and the recipient gladly accepted the 10%, as it was more than he had before. What is fair and seemingly rational in one culture isn't always fair and seemingly rational in another. What exactly is a rational decision?

This book presents a compelling argument for ensuring that there's at least one devil's advocate, skeptic, naysayer, dissenter in your circle of trusted advisors and it underscores the importance of having dissenters in the workplace. Really bad things can result when decisions are not vetted by dissenters, when organizations are staffed exclusively by yes-men, when we are so intent on staying the course that we don't see the collision directly in front of us.

The Brothers Brafman take us on a short and interesting tour of why we do what we do. The better parts: not only do we see what we expect to see but this "expectation" bias changes the way those seen act(three groups in the military are sent to training; randomly assigned rankings from excellent to so so; their commanders are told which is which but not that it is random; and guess what---not only do the commanders rate the ones assigned a random excellent as better but the soldiers ,when later tested, aligned with their commander's pre-planted views; they conformed their performance to how the commanders perceived them); altruism is a more powerful motivator to induce a person to perform a task than money if the money offered is not commensurate with the task(Swiss citizens were ok with a nuclear dump in their town when the appeal was to citizenship but became much less so when the appeal was we will pay you to do it because the moola was not enough; it does not take much to fuel the altruism part of the brain but it takes a lot to fuel the pleasure part of the brain); and once tagged, always tagged( the draft position of NBA players dictacted playing time and length of time in league---the lower the draft pick number, the more of each). Good epilogue with some practical ideas. Also some good stuff on hiring employees. Bottom Line: know these ideas and make them work for you.

The value in this tidy little gem, which will take you all of two days to read, is in the compilation of data and trend spotting. There aren't any new concepts identified here, although to be fair, I at least learned the scientific names and origins of familiar psychological and sociological phenomena. Periodically take a step back and reflect on what you've read, and you'll conclude, "Yeah, I guess I knew that already (though couldn't articulate it as well as the Brafmans)."

You know how so many investors have trouble unloading devalued stocks they own, even though there's no way they'd buy them at their current, depressed prices? That's due to "loss aversion," or our tendency to go to great lengths to avoid possible losses (which carry more psychological weight than do the joy of equivalent gains), combined with a "commitment sway" to stay on the path we're already on. Add our natural inclination towards irrational hopefulness about the future, and you've got "exuberant optimism." [Don't feel too bad about the stock losses- in addition to having plenty of company these days, it's explained in Sway how Lyndon Johnson let the same principles keep the US embroiled in Vietnam. And Bush 43 in Iraq.]

Ferris Beuller is an "initiator" and his friend Cameron is a "blocker." Add in "supporters" and "observers" and you've got a classic model in group dynamics, the contours of which originated from a Boston-based family therapist studying manifestations of schizophrenia in family systems. "Value attribution" causes you to enjoy the same exact musical piece less when heard from a street performer than a concert musician. "Diagnosis bias" explains your reluctance to recognize that the interview candidate with the thick glasses and elbowed tweed jacket isn't as qualified as the thuggish looking guy who followed him, yet was his intellectual superior.

You get the picture. There are a lot of illustrative examples and fascinating studies in Sway, like the comparison of US, Russian, and French audience participation in their country's version of the game show Who Wants to be a Millionaire. And the account of how strangers participating in a money sharing study are willing to forgo free cash as long as they deny the same to a partner they view as violating equitable principles. There's a lot of trivia, too, and I made a note to learn more about the Tenerife air collision of 1977 (the deadliest plane crash) and a Joshua Bell free violin concert that no one attended (see value attribution, above).

Lastly, I made sure to write this review without first looking at the store's Sway page, lest I be influenced by what others have written. That peer pressure, too, is a sway that Supreme Court justices take care to avoid when wrestling with legal issues. [Not that I have anything else in common with those nine.]

Why do normally intelligent people make illogical decisions? It’s a good question that the book ‘Sway’ attempts to answer.
Several examples of sways are illustrated with questionable social science experiments. A few of the experiments were from an era when controls on harming participants were lax. Some studies were from other countries where apparently deceit or the harming of subjects is allowed in the interest of science. For that reason some of the conclusions reached about why sways happen are suspicious.
The verifiable information in the book was scant. Things worth knowing: our brains only allow for greed or altruism at one time, loss aversion is dramatically stronger than the desire for gain, and because of that there is a tendency to over-commit to a losing course in order to avoid certain loss.
There are things worth knowing in this book. It could have been edited down to a magazine article length, though.

Imagine that you have been selected to participate in an experiment where you are paired with a stranger. The experiment requires a total of $10 to be split in any proportion among yourselves. But you are also told that you would be placed in separate rooms and cannot see or communicate with each other. Once the experiment begins, one of you would be randomly designated as the giver and the other the receiver. Once the giver determines the split, the offer would be taken to the receiver. If the receiver accepts the offer, both of you would collect your respective share. However, if the receiver rejects the offer, both of you will walk out empty-handed. This experiment will be conducted just once; there are no second chances.

Now imagine that you are the receiver. Would you accept the offer if offered less than $5 (50:50 split)? Next, you are told that your partner is not a human but a computer. And imagine that you are the receiver again. Now, would you reject the offer if the computer gave you just $1 (10:90 split)?

I imagined myself as a participant and concluded that I would offer 50:50 as a giver. I would also walk out if I get anything less than 50% from a human partner. But I will take anything when a computer determines my cut. I suspect - but cannot conclusively prove - that most of us would follow the same approach.

But.... but.... most of us are rational, correct? From that perspective, it makes no sense to reject any offer in both cases, is it not? After all, any money is better than no money, and this money is free to begin with. So why do we want to be offered 50:50 where essentially the receiver and the giver are chosen at random? (Note: It turns out that most participants of this real-life experiment did offer 50:50, and in many cases when it was not, the receivers rejected the offer.)

Well... it turns out that the reason we behave this way is that we are more bothered about the process than the outcome. When we say that 'it is about principles and not money', what we actually mean is that our sense of fairness sways our decision more than anything else. This, and several other situations, stories and scenarios, frame the immensely eye-opening Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behaviour. In under 200 pages, the authors show us that we humans are not as rational as we make ourselves to be, and that we are swayed to irrationality much more than we care to acknowledge.

It turns out that we sway due to two factors, viz. our own limitations as individuals and our confrontation to situations in social settings. Limitations include aversion to loss (think how we hate cutting losses in a stock market), commitment to a past decision regardless of how badly it is turning out (think Vietnam/Iraq), and our preference to attribute value based on first impressions (think love). Social settings sway us while in groups (think situations when we choose not to speak up even when we disagree with everyone else) or when we believe we are dealt with anything unfair (think.... well.... the previous paragraph).

The range of examples is breathtaking. You read about the (seemingly senseless) actions of a KLM pilot who took off without clearance in 1977 only to lead his passengers to a fiery death. You understand why you opt for 'flat rate' phone plans regardless of their true relevance in life. You learn much from how eggs and orange juice are purchased when prices rise or fall. You travel to Java to get a perspective on how archaeological discoveries are irrationally debunked by world scientists. And just in case you think that logic and rationality exists in 'near death' situations, you are shown samples of irrationality in the Israeli Army & in a Swiss town dealing with nuclear waste.

My favorite story? A world famous musician in jeans and baseball cap plays his $3.5M violin in a Washington subway. Over a 1000 people pass him by and he is largely ignored. Normally accustomed to playing in front of sold out crowds and thunderous applause, the 40-minute subway performance of complex music does not even merit a few glances. Why? Because the audience attributed value based on his appearance. Now imagine the crowd around him if he was formally dressed and there were TV cameras around.....

If Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking encouraged us to trust our 'gut', Sway reiterates the power of irrationality in our subconscious. But where Blink lacked in explaining how negative stereotyping can be avoided, Sway stands out by explaining our bias and how their influence can be reduced in thought and action.

SWAY: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior, by Ori Brafman & Rom Brafman (220 pgs., 2008). The Brafmans are brothers, originally from Israel. Today, Ori is an organizational expert living in San Francisco, Calif. Rom is a psychologist & has a private practice in Palo Alto, Calif.
The main theory of their book is that people will work in ways which are counter intuitive to their training & rational thought because they are swayed by irrational thoughts & behavior. Ha, no matter what an expert would think after reading this book, it sure explains a lot about the way I have lived my life over these past thirty plus years.
The brothers show how people will go to great lengths to avoid perceived losses, when they should have stopped such behavior long before they did. Tragically, they illustrate how an experienced & honored pilot crashed his passenger jet with the loss of hundreds of lives because he was fighting to save a perceived loss to this reputation & that of his airline for having such a sterling on-time record.
The brothers also explain how interviews are some of the worst ways in which toe valuate how well a person will do in a job.
The authors wrote: "The fact is, all of us are swayed at times by factors that have nothing to do with logic or reason . . . It is only by recognizing and understanding the hidden world of sways that we can hope to weaken their influence and curb their power over our thinking and our lives."

Ori & Rom Brafman have compiled a fascinating study into the psychological factors behind irrational behavior, and in the process, validates the findings of other books on the subject; human beings tend to make dumb decisions, based on emotions rather than logic. A classic example is the erratic nature of the stock market, since the Great Derpression; nothing about it has made sense at all, and I'm not sure it ever will make sense.

However, it's evident that certain irrational tendencies need to be corrected, if we are to thrive as a species. In the world of business, where fear permeates much of the sector known as "management", rarely will dissenting opinions be voiced to those intimidating CEOs who have made dumb decisions, usually based on greed & hubris. Nobody wants to be the one to speak up because nobody wants to run the risk of falling out of favor with the corporate hierarchy. That's no way to run a business.

However, just as it's critical for the pilots in the cockpit to communicate with the control tower, the same goes for the CEOs' management team; they've got to be able to communicate openly & honestly, for the sake of the survival of the organization. Anything else is disaster.

The authors have done an outstanding job of demonstrating that irrational behavior has pulled all of us at one time or another. If we don't learn from our follies, expect further disasters.

Who knew that financial compensation had the same effect on the brain as snorting a line of cocaine? After reading "Sway" you know this, as well as a number of other surprising facts. This must-read is subtitled The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior. While it isn't a career coaching book its lessons are applicable to jobseekers:

Hot dog company Nathan's couldn't get people to try their hot dogs so they paid doctors to eat it. If doctors liked it, then they must be okay for the common folk, and hot dog sales took off. This is how the Brafmans demonstrate value attribution. Jobseekers, think about who is giving you referrals and recommendations. Get a highly regarded person in your corner and let value attribution work for you.

My heart is still in my mouth regarding the story of the toddler who died after doctors in the ER repeatedly missed her symptoms. Diagnosis bias caused them to overlook what the symptoms could mean and instead see only what they had predetermined. Jobseekers, if you've already diagnosed your search as beyond repair, then it is. You will see only what is wrong. You will be too easily discouraged. You will miss opportunities that do arise. Change your search first and foremost by changing your thinking.

Anecdotes from politics, sports, business and everyday life teach other lessons in commitment, loss aversion, the chameleon effect and more. Jobseekers, you don't want to go down a road that's not working just because that's what you've always done (commitment). You also don't want to play it so safe that you don't take enough chances to win the job (loss aversion). Finally, the chameleon effect warns us that we take on the characteristics that others ascribe to us. So jobseekers, in this often tumultuous job market, keep company with people who believe in you so you live up to their high expectations. Avoid the naysayers, lest they convince you to be less than you truly can be.

The latest book on why people sometimes behave illogically is "Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior," by the Brafman brothers. Ori has a PhD in psychology and Rom is a graduate of the Stanford Business School. They tell engrossing stories, each of which illuminates a principle of human behavior, and pose such intriguing questions as: Why would an experienced pilot who values the safety of his passengers take unnecessary risks? Why did the Challenger Space Shuttle go up even after "engineers from the company that build the O-ring recommended that the launch be delayed"? Why would a group of emergency room doctors fail to treat an obviously sick two-year-old girl? Why are most job interviews a complete waste of time and energy?

The answers will surprise you, but the basic theme is that we tend to be unduly influenced by other people and by our own preconceived notions. Instead of using our intellects to objectively analyze each situation on its merits, "we often ignore all evidence that contradicts what we want to believe." The authors' premise has widespread implications for every aspect of our lives: government, the economy, education, and of course, our professional and personal relationships.

"Sway" is clearly written, entertaining, and enlightening. The authors illustrate their ideas using a variety of eye-opening examples from medicine, sports, finance, archaeology, and even the world of game shows. If you take the Brafmans' message to heart, you may decide to think before you act, instead of being swayed to do things that will make you feel sorry later.

I have read some great books the past few months. One of these is Sway: The Irresistible Pull Of Irrational Behavior by Ori and Rom Brafman.

Having loved The Starfish and the Spider, I was curious as to how SWAY would live up to its touted, will change the way you think about the way you think.

Essentially SWAY is a book that seeks to identify the unseen forces that sway us in our decision making. What was fascinating is how vulnerable we all are to these psychological forces. What I often consider "rational, reasoned, logical thinking" is, admittedly, more often than not, my own "blind spots" influencing the way I think and reason.

For anyone dealing with people, ministry, organizations, church work, etc. this book will be an eye-opener. All of us tend to think of others as irrational in their behavior and thinking. But few of us believe we ourselves are influenced by these same factors. Sway helped me understand some of the deeply-rooted psychological forces at work influencing the choices I make. What often passes as "God's will" or the "right thing" is frequently more the irresistible pull of one of these hidden forces at work upon our thinking and reasoning.

"We're all susceptible to the sway of irrational behaviors. But by better understanding the seductive pull of these forces, we'll be less likely to fall victim to them in the future."

Some of the forces that sway us and are backed with fascinating real life stories and research:

loss aversion: how we overreact to perceived losses...our natural tendency to avoid the pain of loss distorts our thinking

commitment: strong resolve to stay the course to the way we have been doing things for years and our inability to react to superior strategies

value attribution: our tendency to imbue someone or something with certain qualities based on perceived value, rather than on objective data...once we attribute a certain value to a person or thing, it dramatically alters our perceptions of subsequent information

diagnosis bias: our propensity to label people, ideas, or things based on our initial opinions of them and our inability to reconsider those judgments once we've made them

chameleon effect: when we brand or label people they take on the characteristics of the diagnosis

fairness: and the great lengths to which we'll go to defend it...when it comes to fairness it's the process not the outcome that causes us to react irrationally...how important it is for people to feel they have a voice when it comes to the issue of fairness

group conformity: depends on unanimity for its power...the temptation to align ourselves with everyone else...a lone dissenter is enough to break the spell and "give permission" to break ranks with others in the group

Overall:

1. "Interesting"ness: Great. The topic was sufficiently narrow and the words carefully selected.
2. Ease of Reading: Great. This book took one afternoon of reading to finish
3. Coherence: Great. The authors didn't go off into any Nassim-Nicholas-Taleb style (he of Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets and The Black Swan: Second Edition: The Impact of the Highly Improbable: With a new section: "On Robustness and Fragility") babbling and take a WHOLE lot of pages to make fairly simple points.
4. Value of information per unit of time: Great.

One thing that I really enjoyed about this book was that the reader can go back to the headings of each chapter and find a recapitulation of what was covered therein. (That is a way to review what you are learning and make sure that you are following the arguments that the author is putting forth.) In fact, that may have been the single best point about this book. Of course we all know that Psychology is not a real science, and I don't think that the authors tried to convince us one way or the other. But they did take some number of extant situations and try to go backward from those to illustrate reasoning errors.

I can recommend spending for a second hand copy of this book.

One reviewer is right, this is a single idea book. It fleshes out the idea of what sways our decisions, specifically how we are swayed to make irrational decisions.

The authors define irrational as being out of line with well reasoned and logical choices. These are those cases where the pilot takes off without clearance, the woman is tempted to go around a car stopped at a light into oncoming traffic and more.

Explored are a handful of factors that do the swaying. The book doesn't just list them though, nor are they even in bullet points of any sort. It's a rather meandering course as we are taken from example to example and back again. It's as if the authors felt the need to weave a tapestry of thoughts and experiences, perhaps to make the text more fluid. I found it distracting.

In spite of enjoying the book overall, and honestly, having my eyes opened, this could have been a shorter work The references could have been more on point. The sections in each chapter should have been more clearly defined.

If you enjoyed Blink, and books like it, then you'll enjoy this as well. I recommend the paperback.
It's also generally an easy read; you won't need a dictionary to get through this.

Ori and Rom Brafman present yet another in the seemingly endless series of modern books about how we act irrationally - following on the heels of Switch, Nudge, Buyology, Predictably Irrational and others. So although the names and stories have changed, many of the principles are familiar. In fact, I was amused to see as I was reading the book that most of the principles of irrational behaviour can be traced back to Robert Cialdini's classic - and still the best on this topic, in my opinion - "Influence".

The Brafmans have an engaging writing style that makes for easy and entertaining reading. They employ the classic storytelling techniques of "opening the loop" and "nested stories" - that is, starting a story, stopping it at a crucial point and veering off into another story, before returning to the first. In fact, the entire book is written in this style, with the opening chapter introducing the story of a major airline disaster, and the rest of the book explaining what caused the pilot error.

Certainly an entertaining read, and well worth the time even if you're familiar with some others of this genre.

The Brafman prothers deliver a very readable overview of the psychology of irrational behavior. I thought the examples were compelling, the weaving together of stories to make a point was very logical, and the writting was very clear and readable. I thought it was a good book.

In terms of criticism, this book is a quick light read. If you are looking for something in-depth that presents new and compelling research, this is not it. Also, the book is descriptive of broad principles of irrational behavior, but it isn't very useful for combatting them.

Overall, I would recommend this book to someone about to get on a two hour flight who wanted something light and thought provoking. For someone looking for something for practical application, I would recommend they look somewhere else.

We all make mistakes. Some minor, others, life-changing. Obtaining all the knowledge we can about this field will enhance our time on earth. Based on great stories and solid research, this fun book takes a meandering stroll down the beaches of behavioral and social science. Along the way, we find pearls of wisdom.

In light of the lessons I learned in this book, I will now have to go back and re-read Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinkingby Malcolm Gladwell whose lessons I have been applying at work and home. This book - in a way - is the opposite of Blink whereby our intuition does not rush in to save the day.

I applaud the lack of digressions and tangents. Too often, this type of book leaves the subject matter to discuss an area the reader has not interest in. My only negative critique is that this is really more of a subject for a magazine or journal article rather than a full-blown book length treatment. Still, I really enjoyed the book and hope you find this review helpful.

Michael L. Gooch, SPHR - Author of Wingtips with Spurs

One of the dictionary definitions for rational reads as, "...having or exercising reason, sound judgment, or good sense..." which is how most of us define how we each make decisions and think. However, in the book Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior, the authors (who happen to be brothers) explore a variety of psychological factors that tend to upset our rational applecart resulting in us making some fruity, nutty or downright irrational decisions. The writers, Ori and Rom Brafman, address a host of issues including: the foundational elements that drive our irrational behaviors or sway us from a more thoughtful approach; when are we most susceptible to the forces that compel us down such paths; what are some of the unintended consequences of these actions and why we're unable to notice when we're being swayed? The Brafman's noticed universal aspects of how and why people get swayed as well as some helpful tactics to protect against the insidious Siren call to destruction, which is one of the reasons Soundview enthusiastically recommends this book.

Appropriately enough, I was swayed into this book from the very first word! Fascinating, funny, and superbly written, _Sway_ reveals how irrational forces (including loss aversion, value attribution, and diagnoses bias) unconsciously influence our behaviors and thinking. Each chapter begins with a title page of irresistible teasers (such as: "The $204 twenty-dollar bill," Can a discount drink decrease IQ?" "What lovesick college freshmen have in common with HR managers," "Peer pressure and Coke-bottle glasses"), and after inhaling each chapter, it was fun to go back to the teasers and be in on the inside jokes. Exploring the intersection of psychology and economics, the Brafman brothers (Ori, the organizational expert, and Rom, the psychologist) use cutting-edge research and personal anecdotes to illuminate and change the way we think. If you're fascinated by the quirkiness of human behavior, then _Sway_ will likely pull you in too!

As a doctoral candidate in clinical psychology, I found this book to be a quick and fun read, and recommend it. I'll describe it briefly below, but in following the subtitle of the book; it's irrational to buy books--why not take it out at the library? I'm sure the Brafman brothers (the authors) would grudgingly agree. Invest the money instead!

The book is full of excellent stories and anecdotes that illustrate modern social psychological concepts. In fact, the book reads like a collection of short-stories, with each one covering a concept that can help each of us in our daily decision making and preventing us from falling into irrational but alluring traps.

I'll give an example from the book: the book starts by telling the awful tragedy of the KLM flight 4805 disaster at Tenerife. Everyone aboard died in what should have been a preventable accident. A set of circumstances lead a highly trained pilot--in fact a safety expert--to engage in what social psychologists describe as "loss aversion" which the Brafman brothers define as "our tendency to go to great lengths to avoid possible losses." The pilot could have had a "small blot on his reputation" but the loss for him may have been too great, and instead he gambled with the lives of hundreds, and very unfortunately lost.

The Brafman brothers elaborate further using this accident (I'm just sharing the beginning to lure you in!), to illustrate other social psychological concepts like value attribution. In another case they cited how a premier concern violinist in jeans and a ballcap was essentially ignored while playing in a subway, while a great scientific fraud was accepted by a widely regarded scientist.

As much as I enjoyed the book, I found myself reading it's ~180 wide-margin pages very quickly--is it worth the $21.95 hardcover? While the Brafman brothers are quick to point out irrationality, I point to an overpriced book. Perhaps now it's downloadable for much less, but I believe the Brafman's might agree that it's a much more rational decision to take the book out at your local library!

While I partly jest at my only con in a book full of pros, I do think the book is worth reading, regardless of how much you do or don't spend on it!

All of us have either watched someone or fallen into a death spiral ourselves with circumstances in life. The annecdotal evidence around us clearly shows we/they have made a poor choice and the final outcome is destined to have negative results. Yet, we continue our/their actions desperately committed to our beliefs. Blind to all of the indicators that a different path is needed for the desired outcome. Upon conclusion, in retrospect, we know we should have done something differently.

"Sway" is insightful and interesting. The author reveals how our beliefs and precognitive commitments "sway" our clarity. The examples are easy to identify with and have value if learning why we sometimes just can't slow down doing the wrong things.

"Sway" will cause you to pause and reflect on those times when you just couldn't let go of the wrong choice. Whether it was in your personal or professional life, there are solid examples that most prople can easily relate too.

This is an easy and entertaining read and I would recommend it to anyone who is trying to better their understanding of why we do things that simply do not make sense.

Comments are always welcome.

"Sway" is a book that discusses how we basically make choices and decisions. The three main forces that influences the mechanism of making choices and decisions are, loss aversion (the proclivity to whatever it takes to evade possible choices), value attribution (humans inclination to go with initial perceived value) and diagnosis bias (i.e. blindness to all evidence that contradicts our initial assessment of person or situation). The author gives extensive examples of how these hidden currents/forces affect our daily lives. The examples given in this book helps us to learn how to avoid these hidden currents/forces in order to make a lucid decision and choices. If you are looking for ways to enhance your skills in making better choices and decisions, this is the book you must read!