How do you make decisions? Do you know? Some of us use market norms while some use social norms. These and other topics are covered in today’s review.
Amazing Decisions: The Illustrated guide to Improving Business Deals and Family Meals by Dan Ariely and illustrated by Matt R. Trower aims to help readers learn to consider the reasons why some decisions are better than others.
To achieve the book’s goals of explaining how social sciences and behavioral economics overlap and differ we are presented with a narrative. The narrator, Adam, faces a continuous and confusing set of choices he must make. How will he decide which option to choose in each of these moments? Assisting the narrative are colorful and well-done illustrations.
The author submits that decision making is often a subconscious balancing act between competing norms. We have economics to consider. We also have what is acceptable or appropriate in society. It is not always obvious how to balance these two.
To help explain how we deal with them in Western society, Ariely gives Adam two fairies, the market fairy and the social fairy. Good decision making often requires us to identify and evaluate the forces at work around us, and these characters help Adam do just that. In the process, we as readers are given some thoughts and skills to consider and adapt.
Anyone with a weakness in either of these two departments, economics or social sciences, will benefit from this book, along with anyone with strengths but who aren’t sure how to balance the two perspectives. I am especially looking forward to seeing the reaction of my Autistic son and how the book may influence him when he reads it.
Disclosure: I was given my copy of this book by the publisher as a review copy.