Heuristics and Biases: The Psychology of Intuitive Judgment 1st Edition

This collection of articles has its origin in the work of one of the editors (Daniel Kahneman) and Amos Tversky (now deceased) in the 1970's. The first article in the book gives an introduction to this work and a brief historical survey. This work, along with current developments, is extremely important, for it sheds light on the differences (if any) between "intuitive judgment" and judgment that is based on more quantitative, mathematical, or algorithmic reasoning. If human judgment in uncertain environments is based on a limited number of simplifying heuristics, and not on extensive algorithmic processing, this would be very important for someone who is attempting to implement or simulate human reasoning in a machine. Economics, finance, and political decision-making are other areas that need a more accurate view of human judgment. Indeed, the "rational agent" assumption in classical economics, wherein the person makes choices by assessing the probability of each possible outcome and then assigning a utility to each, is considered to be fundamental, even axiomatic. It is therefore of great interest to examine challenges to this assumption.In order to test the rational agent assumption, experiments must be conducted to test whether indeed the human assessment of likelihood and risk does indeed conform to the laws of probability. The data obtained in these experiments must then be judged as to whether it can be used to decide between the rational agent model and models of human judgment that are based on "intuition" (however vaguely or mystically this latter term is defined).The authors of the first article in this book discuss some of the work on these questions, in particular the research that involved comparing expert clinical prediction with actuarial methods. The latter were found to perform better than the former. Even more interesting is that the clinician's assessments of their abilities were very far from what the record of success actually indicated. Some research has also indicated that intuitive judgments of likelihood do not correspond to what is obtained by Bayesian reasoning patterns.These results, as the authors discuss, motivated performance models that were not based on the assumption of full rationality, but rather on what is called `bounded rationality.' The developers of this model felt that the processing limitations of the human brain dictated that humans must choose very limited heuristics when engaged in decision-making.Also of great interest, and discussed in another article in the book, is the human ability to engage in affective forecasting. The latter involves the making of decisions based on the predictions of the emotional consequences of future events. The authors study the accuracy of affective forecasting and the accompanying notion of `durability bias.' The latter notion arises when individuals attempt to estimate how long particular feelings will last, and this estimation seems to be considerably longer than what actually occurs. The authors discuss some of the reasons for the durability bias in affective forecasting. One of these is ordinary misconstrual, where events are thought to be more powerful than what are actually realized, resulting in the overestimation of the duration of the affective responses to these events. Another regards the difficulty in forecasting affective reactions to events about which much is known. In addition, the authors point to "defensive pessimism" as to another of the reasons for inaccurate affective forecasting. This allows for mental preparation for the consequences of an event, and for positive feelings when the affective duration is smaller than what had been predicted. The main emphasis of the authors' article though is much more interesting than these explanations, for it involves the notion of a `psychological immune system.' Quoting the research of many psychologists, and arguing in analogy to the ordinary biological immune system, the authors view this system as one that protects the individual from an "overdose of gloom." Further, the functioning of the psychological immune system is optimized when it is not brought into the conscious focus of the individual. This `immune neglect' however has as a consequence the durability bias, in that if an individual fails to recognize her negative affect will decrease and be subjected to psychological mechanisms that assist greatly in this diminution, then she will tend to overestimate the time duration of her emotional reactions. The authors discuss empirical studies of durability bias in their article, and discuss some of the consequences of their studies. One of these concerns the possibility that humans could be mistaken about their own internal experiences. This is a very troubling possibility, but the authors give many references that purport to support it. This research shows that not only can people be completely mistaken about their feelings toward an object, but that their actual behaviors is better evidence of their internal states than what they report verbally.Another interesting article in the book concerns the topic of automated choice heuristics. This area has arisen as a reaction to the idea that human choice can be predicted using theoretical models of optimal choice. Instead, one must identify the heuristics the people use to simplify their choices. These heuristics are used to restrict or compress the amount of information that is processed by the human brain and also to deal with the complexity in which this information is assimilated. There are many different theories of choice heuristics, and some of these are discussed in the article. Some of these theories involve heuristics that are "deliberate", i.e. involve the elimination of aspects and slower cognitive processes, and some involve heuristics that are "automatic" and judgmental, i.e. that arise from cognitive processes that are rapid and not controllable. Judgmental heuristics is also referred to as `System 1' heuristics in the article, whereas deliberate heuristics is referred to as `System 2' heuristics. The authors give a very interesting overview of automated choice heuristics, involving choices that are based on immediate affective evaluation, and choices that are using the option that is first thought of. All of these discussions, as are all the others in the book, are extremely important.

I received the book in a really good condition, which was exactly same as the description. I appreciate the bookstore's care. Compared to the new book's price, I believe I had the best deal.

As it is academic not all papers are easy to read However very high quality content

I based a whole module of my PhD in management on this book. The heuristics and biases described in this book can be turned into power conversations in management to affect decisions in real world situations. With my understanding of these concepts, I can now easily detect them in management discussions, which allows me the opportunity to clarify, amplify, and simplify decision making situations.

This is a good reference book for a range of different psychological theories around the notion of "decision making under uncertainty". I use it to get a quick overview of a theory that sounds promising to draw upon for my own academic research in strategic management. Recommended!

This book has a wide scope about the two systems of assessment of situations, cognitive biases, probabilities and similar judgmental analysis by human beings. It stresses on the unreliability of the "System 1" of the intuitive and fast judgement, versus the "System 2" of the purposeful analysis, with use of the appropriate analytical tools.The book offers several papers of research in these areas, rather than a narrative of the many cognitive biases that we as human beings do in our daily life. Although the reading of the summary and some of the papers is enlightening, I found the experiment design, results explanation and presentation of conclusion blurred by the "academic" nature and scholarly writing of the book. Most of the papers were intended on providing proof of the writers proficiency on social psychology, than making a well structured readable account of their conclusions.I am a Chemical Engineer and I am familiar and proficient in basic probability and assessment problems. Some of the tests the authors use, have ingrained in them a faulty design from the statistical point of view (options that include other options) , so that I was puzzled by some of the conclusions.I don't deny the authors know their subject, but the result is fairly dull read for lay people, like me, who are interested in knowing the pitfalls of the cognitive biases in our daily life decisions, rather than reading one or two academic references in each sentence.

Great book - well structured and published in Kindle format. Thanks you Amazon for putting this classic in electronic format.

This collection of work makes for an excellent text book for students of cognitive psychology who wish to read and learn about the subject of heuristics and biases in human decision and judgment making. Heuristics and biases are common, predictable and robust phenomena which affect all manner of human functioning but their study can prove confusing for students. This book presents works by some of the world's leading scientists in this area in a clear and precise fashion, history of research, arguments for models and future research are all simply presented. Its a fine text.

Man könnte sagen, dieses Buch ist die Grundlage für R. Dobellis 'Die Kunst des klaren Denkens'. Sicher, das eine ist (war) ein Bestseller, auch leicht zu lesen, aber eben auch oberflächlich und leider auch ohne jegliche Referenz auf die eigentlichen Quellen.Letztlich geht es - wie immer im Leben - um Entscheidungen unter Unsicherheit. Das ist hochspannend. Wir unterliegen in zahlreichen Situationen einem sogenannten Bias und greifen auf Heuristiken zurück. Dadurch kommt es zu Fehlentscheidungen.Das Buch ist in drei Teile gegliedert: Teil 1: Theoretical and empirical extensions, Teil 2: New theoretical directions, Teil 3: Real world applications. Jeder Abschnitt teilt sich in weitere Kapitel und fast jedes dieser Kapitel liest sich wie ein Krimi.Beispielhaft sei hier Kap. 14 erwähnt: ('The weighing of evidence and the determinants of confidence'). Letztlich werden Expertenmeinungen als 'often wrong, but rarely in doubt' - also 'keine Ahnung aber ohne jeden Zweifel' beurteilt. Und das wissenschaftlich - mit Zugriff auf Forschungsergebnisse von über 50 Jahren. Das überzeugt und man lernt viel über Menschen und warum sie so entscheiden, wie sie entscheiden. Kann man jedem empfehlen, dem Dobellis Werk zu oberflächlich ist.

This book reflects all the last investigations about human judgment.Very interesting. I hope somenone try to apply these theories to education in a future.

セカンドハンドでしたが、割れや書き込みのないいいものでしたー安い値段で購入できて満足です

great book

Very good reference book for anyone interested in heuristics.