From Irrational Decisions to Irrational Beliefs

Dan Ariely built his public career writing about choices. His 2023 book Misbelief turned toward something more foundational: how people come to believe things in the first place.

That subject has acquired a new context in 2026. Ariely joined Israel’s Pirate Party in September as the third candidate on its 25-person slate for the October Knesset election, placing the behavioral economist and bestselling author inside an arena where trust, information and competing versions of reality are unavoidable.

Misbelief is not a campaign book, and Ariely has not presented it as a political program. But it represents an important evolution in the questions he has explored for a general audience. Predictably Irrational examined systematic mistakes in decision-making. Misbelief asks how people can move toward convictions that others see as plainly unsupported and why those convictions can become difficult to dislodge.

The Funnel of Misbelief

Ariely has described the process as a “funnel of misbelief,” with multiple psychological and social forces contributing to the journey.

His interest intensified during the early COVID period, when he said people who believed the pandemic was part of a conspiracy began accusing him of participating in one. Rather than treating the experience only as hostility directed toward him, Ariely said it led him to become fascinated with how people adopt false beliefs about individuals, institutions and the news.

The resulting book examines misinformation alongside distrust and polarization. That framing matters because misbelief is not presented simply as a problem of people lacking facts. Beliefs can become connected to identity, community, emotion and a broader sense that institutions themselves cannot be trusted. That makes correcting a false claim considerably more complicated than supplying a better piece of information.

It also connects Misbelief to Ariely’s earlier work. Again and again, his books have challenged the assumption that people process information as detached rational calculators. Context changes behavior. So do incentives, expectations and social forces.

Politics as a New Context

Those ideas inevitably sound different once their author becomes a political candidate. Elections require citizens to sort through competing claims, decide whom they trust and make judgments about institutions and other people. Modern political life also unfolds inside an information environment where rumors and misleading claims can move quickly.

None of that tells voters what to think about Ariely’s candidacy, nor does expertise in misbelief supply a ready solution to political polarization. What it does is make Misbelief particularly relevant background for understanding the subjects that occupied Ariely immediately before he entered electoral politics.

His latest major book moved from asking why people make irrational choices to asking how distrust and false beliefs take hold. Three years later, its author has stepped into a world where both questions are part of the landscape.