Reviews - Misbelief: What Makes Rational People Believe Irrational Things

There is something odd about reading a book about misbelief written by someone accused of, well, falsification of data. Ariely tells a good story, and uses some personal anecdotes from the pandemic that sound plausible and were certainly interesting but the nagging feeling in the back of my mind about the author’s credibility lingered. Having been an academic at one of the high performing institutions mentioned in the fraud case, I understand the pressures to produce not just good work, but great work. However by the end I reconciled this feeling with the understanding that the ideas presented need examination from new angles, and if Ariely did this, and it helps people understand their biases and quirks as unreliable narrators of their own experiences then perhaps it was a good read after all. The second to last chapter on social trust felt like a throw-in bonus, that needed to be said somewhere and found a place in this book. I felt it’s important in its own right, and deserves far more attention in this age of bending or ignoring truth to further one’s interests. Three and a half stars for the nagging feeling about the truthiness of the work. Otherwise a worthwhile read. Pico it up and see if you can be convinced about the world of misbelieving.

a_laschinger's review against another edition

4.0

challenging informative reflective medium-paced

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