Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior

Ori &Rom Brafman are brothers and did some broad research before coming up with this book. Like other books of its genre it states something that is obvious to most but a little difficult to overcome. Very easy to read as one can identify with many of the situations. Although easy to read, the authors sometimes follow a train of thought, then trails away from it and fails to come back in time. By the time they do, the reader is engaged in the new events. You may not learn anything new but it could be interesting/comforting to know that most people in the world are in the same boat as you when making irrational decisions:-) The power of sway is somewhat similar to 'first impressions are the best impressions'. People are easily swayed by outward appearences as evidenced by how they totally ignored world class violinist Joshua Bell playing on his 3.5 million worth Stradivarius because he was playing on the New York Subway dressed as a street musician. They would pay through the nose to hear him if only it was in a concert hall! Or how an investor refuses to sell a stock that is slowly going underwater against the advise of his agent and lost all his investment in the process. I know many can empathise with this one including me.

All of this reminded me of a story I had read in India when little. I believe it was about Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar but I have heard many variations of it. The story : One day this well respected scholar was travelling in a train with a youth. The youth did not find it amusing to go with this person in simple attire and showed his displeasure in many ways. The guy was going to attend a lecture by the famous Vidyasagar after all and belonged to the higher echelons of education.  Imagine his surprise and remorse then, when on reaching the destination he saw people waiting to garland the simple guy who travelled with him as the famous scholar! To  my delight I found a version of this story as well as more details on Vidyasgar here. I love telling this story to my kids. So the book Sway is a collection of many such instances helpful for the new generation where the old adages 'all that glitters is not gold' or 'think before you leap' etc. may not suffice.