30People Are Crazy

In becoming OtherWise, it helps to remember that other people are just as rational as we are. Which isn’t saying much. Psychologists (not to mention ministers and bartenders) have accumulated impressive evidence that the most sober and deliberate of us can be dependably irrational in some of the most important aspects of our lives.

For example, the American economy was built on a three-part explanation of human behavior: (1) People are rational; (2) they always act in their own self-interest; and (3) the good of society is based on people acting in their own self-interest. But Barry Schwartz, who has spent his career studying the intersection of economics and psychology, doesn’t think human nature is quite that simple. “The ...

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