Book Review: Amazing Decisions by Dan Ariely and Matt R. Trower

Amazing Decisions: The Illustrated Guide to Improving Business Deals and Family Meals written by Dan Ariely and illustrated by Matt R. Trower

Adam has a lot of tricky problems. He wants to make other people happy but doesn't always make the best decisions to improve his relationships. He gives a friend a ride to work and tries to charge him for the mileage. He gets his mom a ten dollar gift card for Starbucks when she'd rather he come visit. He has a birthday party and doesn't know what to do with the random gifts he gets. He has a lot of struggles. Luckily, he has Dan Ariely to help him out. The author is a character in his own book!

The story quickly switches into a discussion of two sets of norms--market norms and social norms. The two sets overlap because people deal with both. But the norms don't work together well without a lot of thought and careful application. Giving a neighbor a ride to work or a basket of tomatoes from their garden is great. But charging for the ride or showing appreciation by giving money for the tomatoes backfires for Adam (as they probably would for everyone else). The expectations of social interactions usually has nothing to do with cash value. Gratitude, trust, and loyalty are what people need. Social norms don't expect one-to-one exchanges. They are more ambiguous and longer-term.

Market norms are typically monetary and business-like. Money is exchanged for goods or labor. The people you deal with are more like commodity conduits than people. Ariely argues that applying social norms to work situations can make jobs and exchanges more rewarding. Cash bonuses at work are nice, but more loyalty and enthusiasm can be gained through gifts and praise, even when those have the same monetary value as the cash that would have been offered. Ariely persuasively backs up his arguments with studies he's conducted through the years.

The book is entertainingly written and explains the ideas through the example of the fictional Adam's life. The advice is valuable though Ariely clearly favors social norms over market norms for guiding almost all one's actions. That's probably the best way to go, since that makes you treat people like people, a result definitely needed in human society.

Recommended.