Dan Ariely’s book Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions is an introduction, at a glancing blow, into behavioral economics for me. I picked up the book because I continue to focus on the vexing experiences I have with clients (and most everybody else) and their sense of aesthetics and design tastes – especially when their decisions are being purchased by way of my creative services. When the trust and relationships required for creative services collide with financial investments, (i.e. when the qualitative and quantitative clash) people’s decision making rational and expectations often moves way off of my predictions and I am often left bewildered. I am trying to get a better grasp on how people make decisions, and how they perceive my abilities and services in the marketplace, and how perceptions of creative business and services are made.
So far into my reading, the most notable lesson learned has taught me about myself. This lesson has been in the author’s critique of the complexities between market norms and social norms. The perception of – and desire for – worth, both monetarily and socially (satisfaction, self-esteem, societal obligation) are intricate, and I can do no better job in explaining it than is done in chapter four of this book, titled “The Cost of Social Norms: Why We Are Happy to Do Things but Not When We Are Paid to Do Them”.
This topic more academically and scientifically addresses similar impulses and conflicts I have been dealing with a great deal in this chapter of my life; every day I work to reconcile my emotive and logical inclinations. Every day is a process of reduction, to reveal the differences in what I do for a paycheck and what I do because of what I am. Both, I might teach myself, are of equal effort and dedication, but are deeds done for very different demands. The real work, however, may be in finding the balance between them, so that the evolution of my career and my character survive each other.
More related thoughts on this topic are sorted out in the 3rd Correction.