Predictably Irrational
This may not be rational, but there's some research showing this is a widespread phenomenon. Mostly, it has to do with a sense of fairness. Coupon codes can make consumers feel like the merchant is being unfair, which leads to dissatisfaction. The solution: don't show the coupon code field or make it extremely easy for consumers to get coupon codes. I've noticed more and more stores put their coupon codes right in the header while you're browsing. So it's impossible NOT to get a coupon. http://www2.owen.vanderbilt.edu/mike.shor/research/promo/jpb...…
I think the sense of entitlement from a donation is unbounded, since it was voluntary. People are usually more clear that a business transaction is thing x for money y. If you're pointing out that people are acting irrationally, then, yes, they are. The difference is that we tend to treat "business transactions" different from other kinds - I think monetary donations are not seen as business transaction, so the expectations are different. See this excerpt from Dan Ariely's Predictably Irrational: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=8923395...
I'm actually quite tired of people telling other people how to be successful. First, it's quite a vain goal. Second, and more importantly, consciously knowing what actions lead to success/failure does not translate into one taking/avoiding those actions (e.g. most people understand that flattery may be insincere, yet many people fall prey to it. Nearly everyone know about honesty being the "best policy", and yet humans across the centuries have deceived (and have been caught)). What would be more useful would be a "n ways to always practice what your mom told you". Dan Ariely's Predictably…
Many of the online learning solutions quoted throughout this comment thread are excellent for people who are autodidactic (and I suspect a vastly disproportionate % of the HN audience are autodidactic). But, for everyone else who lack the will power, discipline, attention span for self-education, college is a great way to structure higher education. This is a great and accurate comment; it reminds me of what I wrote about in "Policies have consequences: Teacher edition" (http://jseliger.com/2011/03/06/policies-have-consequences-te...), in response to another HN thread. The gap between the…
>To be exact - equity in a startup does not incentivise an employee to work longer or harder. I never got the impression startup founders fooled themselves into thinking that. The 2 big reasons for granting equity to lower level employees are not directly related to expecting weekend work: 1) Recruiting. Equity acts as an offset to compensate for below-market salaries --or-- make the job comparable to wealthier companies like AmaFaceGoo that have perks (massages, chefs, etc) and prestige/stability. Mature companies like them no longer offer equity of significance because the early rocket…
I guess I'm the only one who isn't surprised that the 128GB sold out. Do you guys remember that when they made the Xbox 360 originally it launched in the Core and Premium (I had initially written Arcade and Pro here, but my intention was Core and Pro)versions with none and 20gigs HDD respectively? If my memory serves me right, they had higher sales of the 20 gig model rather than the arcade model. Holding that thought train did anyone else compare this to the Dan Ariely's 'Predictably Irrational' chapter of human choice. Given A, A-, and B, A looks better than B precisely because our minds…
Here are a few citations, not all directly relevant, from Dan Ariely's _Predictably Irrational_ (itself a good read for any startup founder): ___________________________________ 1. Amos Tversky, "Features of Similarity," Psychological Review, Vol. 84 (1977). 2. Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, "The Framing of Decisions and the Psychology of Choice," Science (1981). 3. Joel Huber, John Payne, and Chris Puto, "Adding Asymetrically Dominated Alternatives: Violations of Regularity and the Similarity Hypothesis," Journal of Consumer Research (1982). 4. Itamar Simonson, "Choice Based on…
Of the twenty-three books I read in 2010, these seven really stand out: - Predictably Irrational. Everyone here knows this book, right? It had been on my reading list for too long, and I'm glad I eventually managed to read it. Much more enjoyable that I expected it to be, even given the fact that much of the material is well-known already. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictably_Irrational - Longitude follows John Harrison's fascinating, painful and lengthy quest to win the Longitude Prize by creating a clock that was accurate enough to determine longitude at sea. Dava Sobel is a great…
"Being curious or "hormonally charged" seems normal, but people seriously looking to have sex in college seem to be in the minority. Otherwise, there would be an orgy every weekend, right?" If you replace "people" with "men," the answer is probably yes. Men on average tend to seek out far more sexual partners than women do; I remember one study that had attractive, opposite-sex college students approach other students and offer to sleep with them. 75% of males approached said yes; 0 females did. I think the study is discussed in Dan Ariely's _Predictably Irrational_. As Roy Baumeister points…
It goes a bit further than that - you're asking people to make the shift from a non-monetary transaction to a monetary (quantifiable) transaction. This shift is one-way; once you get people thinking in monetary terms, it's very hard to get them to stop[0]. Dan Ariely talks about this in Predictably Irrational, and he gives a great example of this involving an Israeli daycare center: http://www.npr.org/2008/03/31/89233955/dan-ariely-takes-on-i... [0] Of course, you could make the argument that this principle applies on a corporate scale, not just a personal one, which is the point of TFA -…