Book Report – Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior

Book Report – Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior The book, Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior, by Ori Brafman and his brother, Rom Brafman dives into the way that we make decisions. Why do humans make the horrible decisions we do when logic would tell us to act otherwise? There are several psychological influences that sway our decision-making ability according to the Brafman brothers. The authors look at several different factors, with a lot of fascinating and logic-breaking examples. This book will help you understand the decisions you make. In many circumstances times when logic would dictate that we take a certain action, we take the opposite. To illustrate, just ask yourself why you have stayed so long in a doomed relationship? Why was it so hard to sell a stock that has lost much of its value…or to sell your house if it will be for less than you paid for it? In their book, Sway, Ori and Rom Brafman explore our decision making process and what influences our behavior. Hence, the subtitle, The Pull of Irrational Behavior is used. Sway opens with a convincing example — the historic KLM flight where the pilot made a seemingly irrational decision that cost the lives of 584 people in 1977, the largest airline disaster in history. The authors make the argument that because the pilot was so focused on getting to his final destination after being diverted; he was swayed into making a wholly irrational decision, which ended in tragedy. How was he swayed specifically? Well, the book revisits the KLM disaster a few times to flesh out the underlying irrational decisions likely being made by the pilot. The book is filled with such examples, such as people who have bid as much as $200 for a $20 bill. Why? Why would anyone pay more than the face value of a $20 bill? Well, the authors have the answers. Here I will describe all the major sways listed in the book. I will also give an example of the sway and why it affects people so