Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior

Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior
by Ori Brafman, Rom Brafman

Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior
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Book Summary Information

Author: Ori Brafman, Rom Brafman
Edition: Hardcover
Published: 2008-06-03
ISBN: 0385524382
Number of pages: 224
Publisher: Doubleday Business

Book Reviews of Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior

Book Review: A book for the critical thinker!
Summary: 4 Stars

I really enjoyed this book. I borrowed it from by Boss and read it in about three days. You will never think about statistics and human behavior the same way again. I would especially recommend this book for those of us who deal with human behavior for a living. There are a lot of good antidotes in it which really help examine why human beings act in the irrational ways they do. Their writing style is excellent and it drags the reader through the book rather than a simple forced march to get to the end; it is a page turner. I actually found myself wanting to make it home so I could read more!

Summary of Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior

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.

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.

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