Introduction: How an Injury Led Me to Irrationality and to the Research Described Here xi
Chapter 1 The Truth about Relativity: Why Everything Is Relative—Even When It Shouldn't Be 1
Chapter 2 The Fallacy of Supply and Demand: Why the Price of Pearls—and Everything Else—Is Up in the Air 25
Chapter 3 The Cost of Zero Cost: Why We Often Pay Too Much When We Pay Nothing 55
Chapter 4 The Cost of Social Norms: Why We Are Happy to Do Things, but Not When We Are Paid to Do Them 75
Chapter 5 The Power of a Free Cookie: How free Can Make Us Less Selfish 103
Chapter 6 The Influence of Arousal: Why Hot Is Much Hotter Than We Realize 119
Chapter 7 The Problem of Procrastination and Self-Control: Why We Can't Make Ourselves Do What We Want to Do 139
Chapter 8 The High Price of Ownership: Why We Overvalue What We Have 167
Chapter 9 Keeping Doors Open: Why Options Distract Us from Our Main Objective 183
Chapter 10 The Effect of Expectations: Why the Mind Gets What It Expects 199
Chapter 11 The Power of Price: Why a 50-Cent Aspirin Can Do What a Penny Aspirin Can't 225
Chapter 12 The Cycle of Distrust: Why We Don't Believe What Marketers Tell Us 251
Chapter 13 The Context of Our Character, Part I: Why We Are Dishonest, and What We Can Do about It 271
Chapter 14 The Context of Our Character, Part II: Why Dealing with Cash Makes Us More Honest 295
Chapter 15 Beer and Free Lunches: What Is Behavioral Economics, and Where Are the Free Lunches? 309
Thanks 323
List of Collaborators 327
Notes 335
Bibliography and Additional Readings 339