What Was I Thinking?

I read a piece in The New Yorker on irrational spending behavior. In "What Was I Thinking?: The latest reasoning about irrational ways" Elizabeth Kolbert reviews a few books that have come out recently about things that influence our spending decisions. Most of these decisions, it turns out, have little to do with getting value, and a lot to do with things like "anchoring" -- positions and juxtapositions of numbers. The kinds of experiments and conclusions in these books seemed similar to those discussed in Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Cialdini which I read about a year ago.

Anyway, the article didn't make me feel particularly guilty about my own spending, which was what I was most afraid of. Thankfully it didn't lull me into safely feeling like I'm no different than anybody else. One of the books reviewed recommends ways that organizations can help "nudge" people towards smarter decisions. I wish those policies would be implemented!