Stephen Fanjoy

This is the second in a series of articles about our irrational decision making and based upon a book  by Dan Ariely called Predictably Irrational.

Professor Ariely describes some experiments which demonstrated something he calls “arbitrary coherence”.  Basically it means that once you contemplate a decision or actually make a decision, it will heavily influence your subsequent decisions.  That’s the coherence part.  Your brain will try to keep your decisions consistent with previous decisions you have made.  I’ve read about that many times before, but what was surprising in this book was the the “arbitrary” part.  The initial anchoring factor can be totally arbitrary, but it will still heavily influence your subsequent decisions.