Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior | 
 enlarge | Authors: Ori Brafman, Rom Brafman
Publisher: Doubleday Business
Category: Book
List Price: $21.95
Buy New: $7.50
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Rating:  38 reviews
Sales Rank: 1250
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Pages: 224
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.8 x 0.7
ISBN: 0385524382
Dewey Decimal Number: 155.92
EAN: 9780385524384
Publication Date: June 3, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: THE BOOK IS NEW LIKE ALL MY ITEMS........
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Product Description
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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| Customer Reviews: Read 33 more reviews...
 When The Emperor Has No Clothes June 8, 2008
William Holmes (Portland, OR USA)
90 out of 97 found this review helpful
Why would a seasoned pilot, the head of KLM's safety program, ignore his co-pilot and attempt a takeoff in fog at an unfamiliar airport, causing the worst air disaster in history? Why did the co-pilot, who had done exactly the right thing when he reminded his captain that the flight had not been cleared for takeoff, fail to repeat his warning when the pilot pressed ahead?
The collision at Tenerife airport cost the lives of 584 people. Using that accident as their starting point, the Brafman brothers explore the psychological forces that cause people to take large risks to avoid small losses, to judge people and situations by first impressions despite subsequent inconsistent evidence, and to ignore objections from dissenters.
"Sway" is the latest in an engaging series of books like Malcolm Gladwell's "Tipping Point" and "Blink" and Steven Levitt's "Freakonomics." The Brafmans' effort is one of the best written and most approachable of the recent crop, and somehow it kept my focused attention for the duration of a cross-country flight--perhaps the authors are appealing to my irrational impulses in ways they don't let on!
Anyway, one of the most interesting parts of the book is the most reassuring. Research reveals that groups often make better decisions if there's a "blocker" or "dissenter" present--even if that person dissents for the wrong reasons. The authors describe a classic experiment in which the test subjects are led to believe they are being tested for their visual skills--three lines of different lengths are to be matched to a fourth line. The differences in line length are very obvious, so there is plainly only one correct answer. If you put the real subject in a room with several actors who are pretending to be test subjects but who have actually been instructed to give a manifestly wrong answer, most subjects in the experiment will behave in a compltely irrational manner, agreeing with the other "subjects" that lines that are obviously different are exactly the same. But if an actor playing "blocker" is added to the mix and points out that the group is wrong, the subject feels free to disagree and usually makes the right choice. This is true even if the "blocker" makes a different "wrong" choice by picking two other lines of plainly different lengths. What this experiement says for the business and political world is that organizations that "brook no dissent" (like the Bush administration) are likely to perform about as well as that ill-fated flight at Tenarife.
Back to the cockpit: pilots at Southwest and other airlines are now trained to avoid the disaster that happened at Tenerife. Pilots are taught to listed to objections from other crew members, and crew members are trained to communicate those objections in a way that enables the pilot to respond quickly and correctly.
The Brafmans approach this fascinating subject with wit and style, and they tackle other interesting problems besides the one described above: why people often judge a book by its cover (so to speak), why people insist on being treated fairly even if that means foregoing a benefit, and why audiences for the French and Russian versions of "Who Wants to be A Millionaire" behave much differently from each other and from their American counterparts.
If you enjoy books like "Sway," you might want to visit my "Quirkology" list. Gladwell and Levitt unleashed a torrent of similarly conceived books, many of which are quite good.
To steal a march from the disclaimer on the back of "Sway" (which you can see above), if you decide to buy the book because of this review, "you just got swayed." But you should still give this review a "helpful" vote.
Pull me, Push me June 11, 2008
Dave English (Arizona, USA)
19 out of 24 found this review helpful
This is a smoothly written, enjoyable quick read that covers a really interesting subject. We all think we make rational, reasonable choices. But we all know of times that when we look back now we wonder if we really picked the right door, or maybe if 'psychological' reasons somehow pushed or pulled us towards an imperfect choice. This book is one of many neat books that takes solid research published in the growing fields of behavioural economics and social psychology, and then makes a readable whole out of them. There are riptides we feel underneath the waves we see. Not Freud or Jung psychobabble, but reliable biases and mental shortcuts that work for us most of the time. This book is about the times when they work against us.
Cool stuff: Great examples bring the ideas to life. (Hearing a master play a Stradivarius on the NY subway, the academic reaction to the Piltdown man, a surprising secret in an Israeli army leadership training course. On and on.) No need for any prior psychology knowledge. Clearly lets the reader understand the non-intuitive principles involved. Includes recent research findings in a story driven format. Not bogged down by intellectual showing off or long digressions. There are references at the back for those who want to read the original research.
What it is not: This ain't a definitive textbook. It is not new ground (but rather an overview of the field in a readable form). It doesn't get into details or any depth of why we behave in these ways, or how the behaviours may be connected. But that's OK, as long as you know you are buying a great general read not a graduate-level treatment.
The book finds new veins of gold in the mine of psychological research that has already produced Robert Cialdini's `Influence,' Scott Plous's `The Psychology of Judgement and Decision Making,' and other cool books like `Nudge,' or ` Freakanomics.' An fascinating worthwhile read.
"People aren't rational." July 10, 2008
E. Bukowsky (NY United States)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
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.
Smartest book I have read this year. July 18, 2008
Bruce A. Salisbury (Farmington, NM USA)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Wow! What a fabulous,timely, and perhaps overdue book. I was particularly impressed by their discussions of altruism versus addiction, and their ability to tie it to modern day screw-ups. Absolute Must-read for 2008. I am looking forward to their next book.
A self-help book hiding within a scientific treatise June 11, 2008
Julie Neal (Sanibel Island, Fla.)
35 out of 40 found this review helpful
What a great read! Well organized and smartly written, this exploration of the reasons behind irrational behavior is a real page turner. Oddly, reading it makes you feel good, as learning the reasons why people behave illogically makes you feel more in control.
Another surprise: Even though this book is based on scientific thought, it is an easy and quick read. Witty and clear, it's filled with interesting, real-life examples of behavior, such as how Steve Spurrier's unusual style of coaching college football drives his competitors mad. (I should know: I went to FSU!)
Apparently we're wired to act in irrational ways. Our brains are so averse to loss that we avoid it at all costs. People pay stupid amounts to rental-car companies for unnecessary "loss damage" protection. The head of safety at an airline takes off in a 747 without proper tower clearance, ignoring his own safety protocol, crashing and killing everyone aboard. Why? He didn't want to lose his reputation for always being on time.
Once we recognize why our brains are setting us up for failure, we can consciously make other, smarter, choices. Sway takes much of the mystery out of irrational behavior.
Here's the chapter list:
1. Anatomy of an Accident
2. The Swamp of Commitment
3. The Hobbit and the Missing Link
4. Michael Jordan and the First-Date Interview
5. The Bipolar Epidemic and the Chameleon Effect
6. In France, the Sun Revolves Around the Earth
7. Compensation and Cocaine
8. Dissenting Justice
For a companion read I'd recommend another new book, The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives.
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