Irrationally Yours: On Missing Socks, Pickup Lines, and Other Existential Puzzles

by Dan Ariely

  Fun, Self-Control, Happiness

  ON SHRINKING AND HONESTY

  Dear Dan,

  I recently read a study on Italian male sexuality claiming that the average size of Italian male genitalia is roughly 10 percent smaller today than it was fifty years ago. What do you think about this? Is this good or bad news?

  —JOHN

  The most positive interpretation of these findings is that Italian men have gotten 10 percent more honest in the last fifty years.

  Sex, Honesty, Self-Deception

  ON HIGH HEELS

  Dear Dan,

  Why do you think men are attracted to women in high heels?

  —ANN-MARIE

  There are many possible reasons for this. First, high heels change the posture of those wearing them. Wearing high heels makes people stand straighter, and they push the butt and the chest out a bit. Second, high heels make people look slimmer and taller by changing the width-to-height ratio. Third, they change the shape of the legs: make them look more slender, and the muscles become more defined. I am sure that there are other physical changes as well.

  But, personally, I like the evolutionary-type of argument the most—that high heels are appealing to men because at an unconscious level they make men believe that this kind of footwear makes it harder for women to run away from them.

  Fashion, Sex, Signaling

  ON RULES AS A WAY TO OVERCOME NEGATIVE SIGNALS

  Dear Dan,

  I recently went on a date, and as the evening progressed my date and I were about to become passionate and intimate. I had a condom in my wallet, and I was hoping to use it, but I was worried that informing her about the condom would be taken as an indication that I was counting on having sex on the first date. This seems like a lose-lose situation. Telling her that I had a condom would make her think worse of me, and hiding its existence would mean that we would not have sex. Any advice?

  —DAVID

  This is indeed a conundrum, and this type of indirect communication is what social scientists call signaling. In general terms, you are fearing that revealing this information will send a negative signal to your romantic partner about your intentions, and maybe even more broadly about you as a person.

  The ideal way to overcome this problem would be to eliminate the negative interpretation of this signal altogether. This way, you could inform your date about the availability of a condom without having it count against you as evidence that you are expecting sex. And how might you achieve this? The most direct way of course is to legislate that all young males must carry a condom at all times. With such a rule, your dilemma would be eliminated because you would not be implying anything. You would simply be “obeying the law.”

  Given that there is no such law currently in place, and that one is unlikely to be enacted anytime soon, you need a more immediate solution. How about if you started an online movement asking young men from all over the world to sign up for a “condom promise” where each man would commit to always carry a condom? This way you could tell your future dates that you are part of this humanitarian movement and that it is out of this social responsibility that you always have a condom with you. In fact, with the help of this benevolent online movement, carrying a condom could be viewed as a positive signal of you being a decent and caring human being.

  Decisions, Other People, Signaling

  ON TAXES AND MITZVAHS

  “I’m combing our finances for all this disposable income I keep reading we have.”

  {Illustrations © 2015 William Haefeli}

  Dear Dan,

  I hate tax day. Is there any way to make it more pleasant?

  —JAMES

  When I became of taxpaying age and started filing my own taxes, all I had to do was to complete the 1040EZ form. For the next few years I loved tax day. It was a day when I got to think about how much money I made, how little I managed to save, how much I gave the government (another way to think about it is to think about how much the government takes, but I prefer the giving framing), and what benefits I got in return from the federal and state governments. It was a good day of financial and civic reflections.

  Over the years my taxes have become more complex, more difficult to figure out, and the whole process became more annoying. With these changes, tax day has shifted from a day of reflection on my role and duty as a citizen of this amazing country to a day (or more likely a week) of adversarial relationship with the Internal Revenue Service and the U.S. government.

  So, what can we do to make tax day better? The word mitzvah in Hebrew means both a duty and a privilege, and one of the things I try to do in the dark hours of struggling with the different forms and rules is to think about taxes as a mitzvah.

  Reframing taxes this way is one thing that we, as citizens, can do but I also think that the U.S. government has to do its part. First, the tax code has to become much, much, much simpler if we are to experience tax day as a day of citizenship and not just annoyance. Aside from increased simplicity I think that tax day should be used as an opportunity to educate citizens about where our tax dollars have been spent. Perhaps using some kind of tax receipt where we will be shown the itemized list of our contributions to the operation of the country. Some of the expenses on this list might make us happy, some items will be news to us, and some will make us furious. But it would be a good step toward making tax day a day of civic engagement. A somewhat more extreme version of this idea is to give the citizen the opportunity to vote on where 5 percent of our taxes will go. Let us decide if we want more education, more health care, more infrastructure, etc. Isn’t this a step in the direction of what a democracy should be all about?

  And let’s change the name of this day from tax day to Mitzvah Day.

  Spending, Language, Appreciation

  ON BULL SERVICE

  Dear Dan,

  Why do we use the word service with things like the Internal Revenue “Service,” the U.S. Postal “Service,” cable TV “service,” and “customer service”?

  —YORAM

  When I was much younger I got to spend some time on a farm, where I heard farmers saying that they were going to hire a bull to “service” their cows. Maybe this is the answer to your question?

  Workplace, Language, Misery

  ON LOSS AVERSION AND SPORTS

  Dear Dan,

  You have mentioned many times the principle of loss aversion, where the pain of losing is much higher than the joy of winning. The recent World Cup was most likely the largest spectator event in the history of the world and fans from across the globe were clearly very involved. If indeed, as suggested by loss aversion, people suffer more from losing than they are elated by winning, why would anyone become a fan of a team? After all, as fans we have about an equal chance of losing (which you claim is very painful) and of winning (which you claim does not provide the same extreme emotional impact). So in total, across many games, the outcome for fans is not a good deal. Am I missing something in my application of loss aversion? Is loss aversion not relevant to sports?

  —FERNANDO

  This description of “fan-ness” implies that people have a choice in the matter, and that they carefully consider the benefits versus the costs of becoming a fan of a particular team. Personally, I suspect that the choice of what team we root for is closer to religious convictions than to rational choice, which means that we don’t really make an active choice when choosing a team (at least not a deliberate, informed one) and that we are “given” our team affiliation by our surroundings, family, and friends.

  Another assumption implied in your question is that when we approach the choice of a team, we consider the possible negative emotions that would accompany losing relative to the emotional boost of winning. The problem with this part of your argument is that predicting our emotional reactions to losses is something we are not very good at, which means that we are not very likely to accurately take the full effect of loss aversion into account when we make choices.

&nbs
p; In your question you also raised the possibility that loss aversion might not apply to sporting events. This is a very interesting possibility, and I would like to speculate why you are (partially) correct. Sporting events are not just about the outcome. If anything, they are more about the ways in which we experience the games as they unfold over time (even the 7–1 Germany versus Brazil game). Unlike monetary gambles, games take some time and the duration of the game itself is arguably what provides the largest part of the enjoyment. To illustrate this idea, consider two individuals: N (Not-Caring) and F (Fan). What loss aversion implies is that N will end up with a neutral feeling regardless of the game’s outcome, while F has about an equal chance of being somewhat happy or very upset (and the expected value of these two potential outcomes is negative). But this part of the analysis only takes into account the outcome of the game. What about the enjoyment during the game itself? Here N is not going to get much emotional value during the game. By definition he doesn’t care much, and he might spend the time checking his phone or flipping channels. F, on the other hand, is going to experience a lot of ups and downs, feel a connection to the team and to the plays, and will be emotionally engrossed throughout the game. Now, if we take both the experiences of the game and the final outcome into account, we could argue that the serious fans are risking a large and painful disappointment at the end of each game but in doing so they are extracting much more enjoyment from the game itself. And, as in many other areas in life, enjoying the process is often much more important than the final outcome.

  Sports, Loss Aversion, Emotions

  Acknowledgments

  Being trusted by many people with so many questions has been a tremendous privilege on multiple levels. For one, the questions people asked me taught me a lot about what kinds of issues and dilemmas people find puzzling and struggle with. A second source of joy, somewhat like trying to solve a puzzle, came out of analyzing these questions, broadening them to expose the larger principle that they were really about, and then examining what we know and don’t know about the topic from the perspective of social science. A third source of satisfaction came from my hope (perhaps naively) that my answers might be interesting or helpful to someone. And finally, I found it very challenging yet satisfying to try to express an idea within a very limited number of words.

  The roots of this book is in my Wall Street Journal column. And while my editors are never acknowledged publicly in the Wall Street Journal, writing this book allows me to express how much they have helped me along the way. Every other week I would get a short lesson on how to write, express ideas more clearly, and of course how to stick to deadlines. My deep unedited thanks goes to my editors: Peter Saenger, Warren Bass, and Gary Rosen.

  Because this book involved material that was previously published in the Wall Street Journal, it also involved more lawyers than usual. Take the lawyers for the Wall Street Journal, add to them the lawyers from HarperCollins, and on top of that add the complexity that I wanted the profits from this book to support research in social science—and you have the conditions that could make anyone lose their mind. Note that I am not thanking any of the lawyers involved, but I do want to express my thanks and admiration to my literary agent, Jim Levine, and his team at Levine Greenberg Rostan for delivering this project against all odds. The team at HarperCollins, led by Claire Wachtel, also deserves praise for their helpfulness, kindness, and patience.

  This project would not be as fun to work on, or as interesting to read, without the contribution of William Haefeli. We started this collaboration cautiously, with only one cartoon, testing the idea of working together, but very quickly it became clear that we shared a very similar perspective on many topics, and that we enjoyed the give-and-take between the readers’ questions, my answers, and William’s insightful take on the topics. I already miss William’s emails with suggested cartoons for each week’s answers.

  My endless gratitude goes to the person who functions as my external memory, hands, and alter ego. The person who always gives me good advice and makes sure that I follow it: Megan Hogerty. My deepest thanks also go to Matt Trower and Aline Grüneisen, who helped organize, sort, and improve the material in this book and made the process collaborative and fun.

  Finally, where would I be without my lovely wife, Sumi? Perhaps the best piece of advice that I can give about couplehood is to find someone who you admire and aspire to be like in some important ways—and then spend the rest of your life striving to improve and catch up. Having adopted this advice myself, I can personally attest to how magical it can make one’s life.

  I spend much of my time traveling around the world, talking about my research, and giving advice to which people seem to be listening. With this kind of lifestyle, there is a real risk of developing an inflated ego. But then I get back home and very quickly I am reminded of how much more I need to learn about true intelligence, kindness, and generosity.

  Loving, Dan

  Categories

  The pagination of this electronic edition does not match the edition from which it was created. To locate a specific entry, please use your e-book reader’s search tools.

  Adaptation 181

  Aging 104, 151

  Appreciation 55, 57, 124, 165, 207

  Attention 34, 49, 99

  Cars 60, 104, 124, 127

  Communication 40, 83, 91, 165

  Commuting 181

  Comparison 186

  Coordination 75, 112, 133, 167

  Decisions 4, 30, 39, 79, 93, 97, 121, 129, 137, 138, 165, 167, 174, 183, 204

  Dieting 9, 164

  Education 136, 161

  Effort 47, 57

  Emotions 15, 28, 30, 83, 109, 129, 141, 144, 178, 183, 188, 211

  Entertainment 6, 82, 154

  Exercise 149

  Expectations 1, 13, 82, 158

  Experiences 18, 25, 44, 88, 112, 151, 161, 170

  Experimenting 64, 66, 97, 115, 193

  External Perspective 30

  Family 23, 37, 51, 86, 95, 115, 173

  Fashion 62, 202

  Food and Drinks 18, 31, 53, 73, 88, 109, 121, 144, 158, 164, 170

  Forgiveness 37

  Friends 1, 11, 91, 144, 167

  Fun 200

  Giving 11, 34, 73, 86, 102

  Goals 47, 186

  Habits 47, 79, 134, 175

  Happiness 1, 43, 62, 64, 66, 69, 82, 88, 102, 115, 181, 193, 200

  Health 31, 134, 138

  Helping 124

  Honesty 107, 139, 141, 146, 199, 201

  Language 154, 195, 207, 208

  Long-Term Thinking 4, 43, 69, 79, 136, 138, 170, 174

  Loss Aversion 6, 178, 211

  Luck 97, 129, 139

  Memory 37, 99, 151

  Misery 44, 58, 91, 208

  Mistakes 99, 137, 174

  Money 11, 71, 118, 146

  Morality 73, 95, 199

  Motivation 161

  Opinions 173

  Other People 31, 39, 40, 83, 93, 133, 188, 195, 204

  Political Correctness 62

  Predictions 13, 39, 55, 77, 183, 195

  Procrastination 95, 149

  Regret 109, 137, 156

  Relationships 13, 21, 28, 43, 55, 66, 69, 77, 86, 107, 112, 118, 173, 197

  Religion 156

  Rules 9, 23, 102

  Self-Control 9, 134, 164, 175, 200

  Self-Deception 197, 201

  Self-Image 104

  Sex 28, 53, 197, 201, 202

  Signaling 21, 60, 202, 204

  Social Media 15, 75

  Social Norms 15, 40, 53, 118, 133

  Spending 60, 71, 121, 144, 207

  Sports 211

  Stock Market 178, 199

  Technology 49, 75, 107, 154

  Time 25, 51, 127, 167

  Travel 25, 51, 58, 64, 183, 188

  Value 6, 18, 34, 71, 93, 121, 139, 156, 158

  Waiting 58, 127

  Wishful Thinking 175

  Workplace 4, 23, 44, 49, 57, 77, 136, 14
6, 149, 186, 193, 208

  About the Authors

  DAN ARIELY is the James B. Duke Professor of Psychology and Behavioral Economics at Duke University, and is the founder of the Center for Advanced Hindsight. He is the author of three New York Times bestsellers: Predictably Irrational, The Upside of Irrationality, and The Honest Truth About Dishonesty. He lives in Durham, North Carolina, with his wife, Sumi, and their two adorable and well-behaved children, Amit and Neta.

  WILLIAM HAEFELI is an internationally revered cartoonist. He is a cartoonist for The New Yorker, and his work has also appeared in numerous magazines in the United States and abroad, including Punch, The Advocate, The London Magazine, Chicago, and Saturday Review. William studied psychology at Duke University and art at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts.

  Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.

  Also by Dan Ariely

  Predictably Irrational, Revised and Expanded Edition

  The Upside of Irrationality

  The Honest Truth About Dishonesty

  A Taste of Irrationality

  The Irrational Bundle

  Credits

  COVER DESIGN BY GREGG KULICK

  COVER ILLUSTRATION BY WILLIAM HAEFELI

  Back Ad

  Copyright

  IRRATIONALLY YOURS. Copyright © 2015 by Dan Ariely. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.