Everything is relative

Ariely, a behavioural economist, argues that people are not just occasionally irrational. We make the same mistakes in the same ways, again and again, which makes our errors predictable.

We rarely judge things on their own; we compare. Ariely describes a magazine offer with a web-only subscription, a print-only subscription and a print-and-web bundle at the same price as print alone. Almost nobody wanted print only, but its presence made the bundle look like a bargain. Such decoys quietly steer our choices.