Heuristics and Biases: The Psychology of Intuitive Judgment 1st Edition
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Editorial Reviews
Review
"...the book should serve well as a reference work for researchers in cognitive science and as a textbook for advanced courses in that difficult topic. Philosophers interested in cognitive science will also wish to consult it." Metapsychology Online Review
"Heuristics and Biases: The Psychology of Intuitive Judgment is a scholarly treat, one that is sure to shape the perspectives of another generation of researchers, teachers, and graduate students. The book will serve as a welcome refresher course for some readers and a strong introduction to an important research perspective for others." Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology
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Product details
- Publisher : Cambridge University Press; 1st edition (July 8, 2002)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 880 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0521792606
- ISBN-13 : 978-0521792608
- Item Weight : 2.67 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.14 x 1.81 x 9.21 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #4,749,731 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #3,485 in Cognitive Psychology (Books)
- #9,145 in Medical Cognitive Psychology
- Customer Reviews:
About the authors
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Daniel Kahneman (Hebrew: דניאל כהנמן, born March 5, 1934) is an Israeli-American psychologist notable for his work on the psychology of judgment and decision-making, as well as behavioral economics, for which he was awarded the 2002 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (shared with Vernon L. Smith). His empirical findings challenge the assumption of human rationality prevailing in modern economic theory. With Amos Tversky and others, Kahneman established a cognitive basis for common human errors that arise from heuristics and biases (Kahneman & Tversky, 1973; Kahneman, Slovic & Tversky, 1982; Tversky & Kahneman, 1974), and developed prospect theory (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979).
In 2011, he was named by Foreign Policy magazine to its list of top global thinkers. In the same year, his book Thinking, Fast and Slow, which summarizes much of his research, was published and became a best seller. He is professor emeritus of psychology and public affairs at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School. Kahneman is a founding partner of TGG Group, a business and philanthropy consulting company. He is married to Royal Society Fellow Anne Treisman.
In 2015 The Economist listed him as the seventh most influential economist in the world.
Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Photo by see page for author [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
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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.
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.
The paper-based format of the book means that the content is relatively detailed and technical, with specifics of many experimental studies, and thus the book is oriented towards an academic audience rather than the general reader (for whom Thinking, Fast and Slow is a better choice). Likewise, the book is NOT a systematic textbook on heuristics and biases, so look elsewhere if that's your interest - almost no one will read this book cover to cover, nor is that generally necessary.
I give the book 5 stars for achieving its goals for its intended audience, and I hope this review is helpful in clarifying who that audience is.
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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.


Very interesting. I hope somenone try to apply these theories to education in a future.

安い値段で購入できて満足です