Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior | 
 enlarge | Authors: Ori Brafman, Rom Brafman
Publisher: Doubleday Business
Category: Book
List Price: $21.95
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Rating:  48 reviews
Sales Rank: 433
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
ASIN: 0385524382
Publication Date: June 3, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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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 43 more reviews...
Quick read but very imformative November 21, 2008
W. Freeman (Lafayette, LA, USA)
I thought it was a wonderful book. Pointed out mistakes I make in my own thinking and though I may not be able to change my thinking much, at least it was able to make me aware of some of the traps I may be falling into. Very good book.
Definitely swayed by Sway November 18, 2008
J. Guy Muse (Guayaquil Ecuador)
I have read some great books the past few months. One of these is Sway: The Irresistible Pull Of Irrational Behavior by Ori and Rom Brafman.
Having loved The Starfish and the Spider, I was curious as to how SWAY would live up to its touted, will change the way you think about the way you think.
Essentially SWAY is a book that seeks to identify the unseen forces that sway us in our decision making. What was fascinating is how vulnerable we all are to these psychological forces. What I often consider "rational, reasoned, logical thinking" is, admittedly, more often than not, my own "blind spots" influencing the way I think and reason.
For anyone dealing with people, ministry, organizations, church work, etc. this book will be an eye-opener. All of us tend to think of others as irrational in their behavior and thinking. But few of us believe we ourselves are influenced by these same factors. Sway helped me understand some of the deeply-rooted psychological forces at work influencing the choices I make. What often passes as "God's will" or the "right thing" is frequently more the irresistible pull of one of these hidden forces at work upon our thinking and reasoning.
"We're all susceptible to the sway of irrational behaviors. But by better understanding the seductive pull of these forces, we'll be less likely to fall victim to them in the future."
Some of the forces that sway us and are backed with fascinating real life stories and research:
loss aversion: how we overreact to perceived losses...our natural tendency to avoid the pain of loss distorts our thinking
commitment: strong resolve to stay the course to the way we have been doing things for years and our inability to react to superior strategies
value attribution: our tendency to imbue someone or something with certain qualities based on perceived value, rather than on objective data...once we attribute a certain value to a person or thing, it dramatically alters our perceptions of subsequent information
diagnosis bias: our propensity to label people, ideas, or things based on our initial opinions of them and our inability to reconsider those judgments once we've made them
chameleon effect: when we brand or label people they take on the characteristics of the diagnosis
fairness: and the great lengths to which we'll go to defend it...when it comes to fairness it's the process not the outcome that causes us to react irrationally...how important it is for people to feel they have a voice when it comes to the issue of fairness
group conformity: depends on unanimity for its power...the temptation to align ourselves with everyone else...a lone dissenter is enough to break the spell and "give permission" to break ranks with others in the group
Put it on Your Pop Psych Bookshelf November 13, 2008
J. A. Walsh (Boston, MA, USA)
The Brafman boys have a nice addition to the Pop Psych Lit bookshelf here. The book's applicability cuts across genres, certainly touching on business (especially management and marketing), personal improvement, relationships, psychology, and probably other areas.
They start really strong with the story of an airline crash and the pilot's commitment of several successive and compounding errors that demonstrate some of their key takeaways: commitment bias, confirmation bias, avoidance of loss, etc. The book moves along quickly and hits spots along the way; but, nothing else quite matches up to this section for teachability: its memorable and its tangible. To borrow the parlance of another quasi-pop psych title: it sticks.
Without question, "Sway" will get you thinking about some of your pwn actions and that's where I see the value for business and management and also in the family/relationships context. Joins "Nudge" and "Made to Stick" as less heralded entries in this growing and important category of nonfiction where Gladwell is the rock star and center of gravity.
Challenge to assumption of rationality October 16, 2008
pinetreepoet
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Good effort to put scholarly studies into accessible language with a simple theme. In this case, the theme is a "sway" toward irrational behavior. The authors keep it tightly focused on a few sways - fear loss more than gain, diagnosis error, and commitment. Of these, the most interesting for these times is the idea that people negatively respond to losses far more than they positively respond to equivalent gains. The book offers suggestions to counter the sways once you recognize their existence.
 Well Written and Easy to Understand October 15, 2008
Ken Montville
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I've been interested in the reasons people make the types of decisions they do even when presented with the evidence that it's the wrong decision or, at best, inappropriate. This book explains the reasons in an easy-to-understand format that makes sense.
It's a quick read without a lot of the technical gobbledygook that might be present in textbooks or peer reviewed journals. It's well worth a look.
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