I owe my love for Behavioural Economics to an old lecturer of mine, she is a professor of Psychology and taught Decision Making at a Business School I attended a long time ago. While I have no interest in the very dirty research work that birth the pop literature that get to enjoy, I have always enjoyed the literature that comes out of this field. I make an effort to read a minimum of one of such books every year. This year, I got The Choice Factory in my 2021 TBR.
The Choice Factory is an enjoyable read that explores behavioural biases that influence how consumers decide what they buy. It is a short and crisp book that is divided into 25 short chapters with each chapter covering a specific bias. While the book is primarily aimed at advertising practitioners and marketing executives, the writing is simple enough to be understood by anyone interested in consumer behaviour. Some of the biases include price relativity, fundamental attribution error, social proof and the pain of paymenT. Throughout the book, the author replicates and affirms many classic experiments that examine human behaviour and prove that they still apply to today’s consumer world. The experiments are interesting and the conclusions are illuminating. Suddenly the context of an advertisement or the price relativity created by a new category begins to make new sense and you finally understand why you seem to spend more when using your debit/credit card than when paying cash. Good simple read.
3.4/5
