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Payoff
A review of

Payoff

The Hidden Logic That Shapes Our Motivations


Why You Do What You Do

by David Meyer

Best-selling author Dan Ariely reflects on his struggles with pain to offer insight into motivation.

Dan Ariely is the James B. Duke Professor of Psychology and Behavioral Economics at Duke University where he founded and directs the Center for Advanced Hindsight. He suffered catastrophic burns as a teen, and reflecting on his ordeal as a “pain person” – one who knows, feels and thinks only pain – led him to consider motivation, its sources, its mysterious nature, and what inspires or impedes it.

Ariely’s brief meditation – full of engaging anecdotes and weirdly inconclusive lab experiments – offers a charming discussion of the unknowability of motivation. He writes movingly and with great originality about connection, psychology, the humane workspace and the human experience.