Gerd Gigerenzer

Statistical illiteracy can have an enormously negative impact on decision making. This volume of collected papers brings together applied and theoretical research on risks and decision making across the fields of medicine, psychology, and economics. Collectively, the essays demonstrate why the frame in which statistics are communicated is essential for broader understanding and sound decision making, and that understanding risks and uncertainty has wide-reaching implications for daily life… Mehr anzeigen

Statistical illiteracy can have an enormously negative impact on decision making. This volume of collected papers brings together applied and theoretical research on risks and decision making across the fields of medicine, psychology, and economics. Collectively, the essays demonstrate why the frame in which statistics are communicated is essential for broader understanding and sound decision making, and that understanding risks and uncertainty has wide-reaching implications for daily life. Gerd Gigerenzer provides a lucid review and catalog of concrete instances of heuristics, or rules of thumb, that people and animals rely on to make decisions under uncertainty, explaining why these are very often more rational than probability models. After a critical look at behavioral theories that do not model actual psychological processes, the book concludes with a call for a "heuristic revolution" that will enable us to understand the ecological rationality of both statistics and heuristics, and bring a dose of sanity to the study of rationality. Weniger anzeigen

Contrary to popular opinion, one of the main problems in providing uniformly excellent health care is not lack of money but lack of knowledge—on the part of both doctors and patients. The studies in this book show that many doctors and most patients do not understand the available medical evidence. Both patients and doctors are “risk illiterate”—frequently unable to tell the difference between actual risk and relative risk. Further, unwarranted disparity in treatment decisions is the rule… Mehr anzeigen

Contrary to popular opinion, one of the main problems in providing uniformly excellent health care is not lack of money but lack of knowledge—on the part of both doctors and patients. The studies in this book show that many doctors and most patients do not understand the available medical evidence. Both patients and doctors are “risk illiterate”—frequently unable to tell the difference between actual risk and relative risk. Further, unwarranted disparity in treatment decisions is the rule rather than the exception in the United States and Europe. All of this contributes to much wasted spending in health care.

The contributors to Better Doctors, Better Patients, Better Decisions investigate the roots of the problem, from the emphasis in medical research on technology and blockbuster drugs to the lack of education for both doctors and patients. They call for a new, more enlightened health care, with better medical education, journals that report study outcomes completely and transparently, and patients in control of their personal medical records, not afraid of statistics but able to use them to make informed decisions about their treatments. Weniger anzeigen

As reflected in the amount of controversy, few areas in psychology have undergone such dramatic conceptual changes in the past decade as the emerging science of heuristics. Heuristics are efficient cognitive processes, conscious or unconscious, that ignore part of the information. Because using heuristics saves effort, the classical view has been that heuristic decisions imply greater errors than do “rational” decisions as defined by logic or statistical models. However, for many decisions, the… Mehr anzeigen

As reflected in the amount of controversy, few areas in psychology have undergone such dramatic conceptual changes in the past decade as the emerging science of heuristics. Heuristics are efficient cognitive processes, conscious or unconscious, that ignore part of the information. Because using heuristics saves effort, the classical view has been that heuristic decisions imply greater errors than do “rational” decisions as defined by logic or statistical models. However, for many decisions, the assumptions of rational models are not met, and it is an empirical rather than an a priori issue how well cognitive heuristics function in an uncertain world. To answer both the descriptive question (“Which heuristics do people use in which situations?”) and the prescriptive question (“When should people rely on a given heuristic rather than a complex strategy to make better judgments?”), formal models are indispensable. We review research that tests formal models of heuristic inference, including in business organizations, health care, and legal institutions. This research indicates that (a) individuals and organizations often rely on simple heuristics in an adaptive way, and (b) ignoring part of the information can lead to more accurate judgments than weighting and adding all information, for instance for low predictability and small samples. The big future challenge is to develop a systematic theory of the building blocks of heuristics as well as the core capacities and environmental structures these exploit. Weniger anzeigen

How do people make decisions when time is limited, information unreliable, and the future uncertain? Based on the work of Nobel laureate Herbert Simon and with the help of colleagues around the world, the Adaptive Behavior and Cognition (ABC) Group at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin has developed a research program on simple heuristics, also known as fast-and-frugal heuristics.

By providing a fresh look at how the mind works as well as the nature of rationality… Mehr anzeigen

How do people make decisions when time is limited, information unreliable, and the future uncertain? Based on the work of Nobel laureate Herbert Simon and with the help of colleagues around the world, the Adaptive Behavior and Cognition (ABC) Group at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin has developed a research program on simple heuristics, also known as fast-and-frugal heuristics.

By providing a fresh look at how the mind works as well as the nature of rationality, the simple heuristics program has stimulated a large body of research, led to fascinating applications in diverse fields from law and medicine to business and sports, and instigated controversial debates in psychology, philosophy, and economics. In a single volume, this text compiles key articles that have been published in journals across many disciplines. These articles present theory, real-world applications, and a sample of the large number of existing experimental studies that provide evidence for people's adaptive use of heuristics. Weniger anzeigen

Heuristics are efficient cognitive processes that ignore information. In contrast to the widely held view that less processing reduces accuracy, the study of heuristics shows that less information, computation, and time can in fact improve accuracy. We review the major progress made so far: (a) the discovery of less-is-more effects; (b) the study of the ecological rationality of heuristics, which examines in which environments a given strategy succeeds or fails, and why; (c) an advancement from… Mehr anzeigen

Heuristics are efficient cognitive processes that ignore information. In contrast to the widely held view that less processing reduces accuracy, the study of heuristics shows that less information, computation, and time can in fact improve accuracy. We review the major progress made so far: (a) the discovery of less-is-more effects; (b) the study of the ecological rationality of heuristics, which examines in which environments a given strategy succeeds or fails, and why; (c) an advancement from vague labels to computational models of heuristics; (d) the development of a systematic theory of heuristics that identifies their building blocks and the evolved capacities they exploit, and views the cognitive system as relying on an ‘‘adaptive toolbox;’’ and (e) the development of an empirical methodology that accounts for individual differences, conducts competitive tests, and has provided evidence for people’s adaptive use of heuristics. Homo heuristicus has a biased mind and ignores part of the available information, yet a biased mind can handle uncertainty more efficiently and robustly than an unbiased mind relying on more resource-intensive and general-purpose processing strategies. Weniger anzeigen

Many doctors, patients, journalists, and politicians alike do not understand what health statistics mean or draw wrong conclusions without noticing. Collective statistical illiteracy refers to the widespread inability to understand the meaning of numbers. For instance, many citizens are unaware that higher survival rates with cancer screening do not imply longer life, or that the statement that mammography screening reduces the risk of dying from breast cancer by 25% in fact means that 1 less… Mehr anzeigen

Many doctors, patients, journalists, and politicians alike do not understand what health statistics mean or draw wrong conclusions without noticing. Collective statistical illiteracy refers to the widespread inability to understand the meaning of numbers. For instance, many citizens are unaware that higher survival rates with cancer screening do not imply longer life, or that the statement that mammography screening reduces the risk of dying from breast cancer by 25% in fact means that 1 less woman out of 1,000 will die of the disease. We provide evidence that statistical illiteracy (a) is common to patients, journalists, and physicians; (b) is created by nontransparent framing of information that is sometimes an unintentional result of lack of understanding but can also be a result of intentional efforts to manipulate or persuade people; and (c) can have serious consequences for health.
The causes of statistical illiteracy should not be attributed to cognitive biases alone, but to the emotional nature of the doctor–patient relationship and conflicts of interest in the healthcare system. The classic doctor–patient relation is based on (the physician’s) paternalism and (the patient’s) trust in authority, which make statistical literacy seem unnecessary; so does the traditional combination of determinism (physicians who seek causes, not chances) and the illusion of certainty (patients who seek certainty when there is none). We show that information pamphlets, Web sites, leaflets distributed to doctors by the pharmaceutical industry, and even medical journals often report evidence in nontransparent forms that suggest big benefits of featured interventions and small harms. Without understanding the numbers involved, the public is susceptible to political and commercial manipulation of their anxieties and hopes, which undermines the goals of informed consent and shared decision making. Weniger anzeigen

What is the nature of human wisdom? - For many, the ideal image of rationality is a heavenly one: an omniscient God, a Laplacean demon, a super computer, or a fully consistent logical system. Gerd Gigerenzer argues, in contrast, that there are more efficient tools in our minds than logic; he calls them fast and frugal heuristics. These adaptive tools work in a world where the present is only partially known and the future is uncertain. Here, rationality is not logical but ecological, and this… Mehr anzeigen

What is the nature of human wisdom? - For many, the ideal image of rationality is a heavenly one: an omniscient God, a Laplacean demon, a super computer, or a fully consistent logical system. Gerd Gigerenzer argues, in contrast, that there are more efficient tools in our minds than logic; he calls them fast and frugal heuristics. These adaptive tools work in a world where the present is only partially known and the future is uncertain. Here, rationality is not logical but ecological, and this volume shows how this insight can help remedy even the widespread problem of statistical innumeracy.

Rationality for Mortals (which follows on a previous collection, Adaptive Thinking) presents Gigerenzer's most recent articles, revised and updated where appropriate, together to psychologists, philosophers, physicians, biologists, economists, educators, and others who are curious about the nature of rationality and how humans are able to make wise decisions.Rationality for Mortals - How people cope with uncertainty. Weniger anzeigen

How does intuition work? What lies behind our moral behavior if not reflection and reasoning? How can simple "rules of thumb" help amateurs beat the stock market, outfielders catch a fly ball, parents choose a school, or lovers a mate?

Gerd Gigerenzer, a director at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development whose break through research was a major source for Malcolm Gladwell's Blink, takes us step-by-step through the science of good decision making. The trick is not to amass… Mehr anzeigen

How does intuition work? What lies behind our moral behavior if not reflection and reasoning? How can simple "rules of thumb" help amateurs beat the stock market, outfielders catch a fly ball, parents choose a school, or lovers a mate?

Gerd Gigerenzer, a director at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development whose break through research was a major source for Malcolm Gladwell's Blink, takes us step-by-step through the science of good decision making. The trick is not to amass information, but to discard it: to know intuitively what one doesn't need to know. Gigerenzer frees us from the jargon of experts and the drudgery of pros-and-cons lists. Instead, he suggests that we hone the cognitive, emotional, and social repertoire we've evolved over the millenia.

This repertoire consists of rules of thumb that, unlike the rules of theoretical logic, have evolved expressly to cope with the human experience. Social intelligence, for example, relies on powerful intuitive tools including trust, deception, identification, rumor, wishful thinking, and cooperation. Social and political change, good or bad, often originates from these factors rather than from lucid reasoning. In fact, what looks like a reasoning error from a purely logical perspective can be a highly intelligent social judgement in our fiendishly complex lives.

Nobel laureate Herbert Simon called Gigerenzer's research a "revolution in cognitive science, striking a great blow for sanity in the approach to human rationality." In wry, accessible prose, Gut Feelings provides us with a brilliant exploration of what makes us tick. Weniger anzeigen

In recent decades, the economists' concept of rational choice has dominated legal reasoning. And yet, in practical terms, neither the lawbreakers the law addresses nor officers of the law behave as the hyperrational beings postulated by rational choice. Critics of rational choice and believers in "fast and frugal heuristics" propose another approach: using certain formulations or general principles (heuristics) to help navigate in an environment that is not a well-ordered setting with an… Mehr anzeigen

In recent decades, the economists' concept of rational choice has dominated legal reasoning. And yet, in practical terms, neither the lawbreakers the law addresses nor officers of the law behave as the hyperrational beings postulated by rational choice. Critics of rational choice and believers in "fast and frugal heuristics" propose another approach: using certain formulations or general principles (heuristics) to help navigate in an environment that is not a well-ordered setting with an occasional disturbance, as described in the language of rational choice, but instead is fundamentally uncertain or characterized by an unmanageable degree of complexity. This is the intuition behind behavioral law and economics.

In Heuristics and the Law, experts in law, psychology, and economics explore the conceptual and practical power of the heuristics approach in law. They discuss legal theory; modeling and predicting the problems the law purports to solve; the process of making law, in the legislature or in the courtroom; the application of existing law in the courts, particularly regarding the law of evidence; and implementation of the law and the impact of law on behavior.

Contributors:
Ronald J. Allen, Hal R. Arkes, Peter Ayton, Susanne Baer, Martin Beckenkamp, Robert Cooter, Leda Cosmides, Mandeep K. Dhami, Robert C. Ellickson, Christoph Engel, Richard A. Epstein, Wolfgang Fikentscher, Axel Flessner, Robert H. Frank, Bruno S. Frey, Gerd Gigerenzer, Paul W. Glimcher, Daniel G. Goldstein, Chris Guthrie, Jonathan Haidt, Reid Hastie, Ralph Hertwig, Eric J. Johnson, Jonathan J. Koehler, Russell Korobkin, Stephanie Kurzenhäuser, Douglas A. Kysar, Donald C. Langevoort, Richard Lempert, Stefan Magen, Callia Piperides, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski, Clara Sattler de Sousa e Brito, Joachim Schulz, Victoria A. Shaffer, Indra Spiecker genannt Döhmann, John Tooby, Gerhard Weniger anzeigen

Every day ordinary people are confronted with statistically-based information that may mean the difference between life and death, freedom and prison, or economic hardship and financial security. Understanding the real significance of a medical test, which is never absolutely certain, or following complex arguments with probabilities, is often very difficult for us.

And indeed, in the face of modern statistical devices such as probabilities and percentages, Gigerenzer has discovered that… Mehr anzeigen

Every day ordinary people are confronted with statistically-based information that may mean the difference between life and death, freedom and prison, or economic hardship and financial security. Understanding the real significance of a medical test, which is never absolutely certain, or following complex arguments with probabilities, is often very difficult for us.

And indeed, in the face of modern statistical devices such as probabilities and percentages, Gigerenzer has discovered that even most doctors and lawyers are unable to reason clearly about risk. Yet, Gigerenzer insists that any person of normal intelligence can understand risk without taking a course in statistics. In this book the cognitive psychologist offers simple tools that anyone can use to overcome innumeracy and understand the uncertainty in everything form medical diagnoses and DNA evidence to financial statements and political claims.

The books gives many examples, from the O. J. Simpson trial to the utility of breast cancer screening programs, and explains how the frequent misconceptions about risk are exploited. Weniger anzeigen

In 1999, a Dahlem Konferenz organized by Gerd Gigerenzer and Reinhard Selten focused around Bounded Rationality. A number of internationally well-known social scientists discussed issues such as the adaptive toolbox, fast and frugal heuristics, fiction of optimization, self-esteem, risk taking, Prisoner's Dilemma, social learning, emotions, and norms. The collected background papers and group reports, written by all participants, document the overall goal of the conference: (a) to provide a… Mehr anzeigen

In 1999, a Dahlem Konferenz organized by Gerd Gigerenzer and Reinhard Selten focused around Bounded Rationality. A number of internationally well-known social scientists discussed issues such as the adaptive toolbox, fast and frugal heuristics, fiction of optimization, self-esteem, risk taking, Prisoner's Dilemma, social learning, emotions, and norms. The collected background papers and group reports, written by all participants, document the overall goal of the conference: (a) to provide a framework of bounded rationality in terms of the metaphor of adaptive toolbox, (b) to provide an understanding about why and when the simple heuristics in the adaptive toolbox work, (c) to extend the notion of bounded rationality from cognitive tools to emotions, and (d) to extend the notion of bounded rationality to include social norms, imitation, and other cultural tools.

The Dahlem Konferenzen promote interdisciplinary exchange of scientific ideas and stimulate cooperation in research among international scientists. Dahlem Konferenzen proved themselves to be an invaluable tool for communication in science. Dahlem Konferenzen created a special type of forum for communication, now internationally recognized as the Dahlem Workshop Model. These workshops are the framework in which coherent discussions between the disciplines take place and are focused around a topic of high priority interest to the disciplines concerned. Weniger anzeigen

Where do new ideas come from? What is social intelligence? How can innumeracy be turned into insight? Why do social scientists perform mindless statistical rituals? This vital new book addresses these questions. Gerd Gigerenzer reformulates rationality as adaptive thinking: the way minds cope with their environments, both ecological and social. Together, these collected papers develop the idea that human thinking - from scientific creativity to simply understanding what a positive HIV test… Mehr anzeigen

Where do new ideas come from? What is social intelligence? How can innumeracy be turned into insight? Why do social scientists perform mindless statistical rituals? This vital new book addresses these questions. Gerd Gigerenzer reformulates rationality as adaptive thinking: the way minds cope with their environments, both ecological and social. Together, these collected papers develop the idea that human thinking - from scientific creativity to simply understanding what a positive HIV test means - takes place both inside and outside the mind.

Gerd Gigerenzer proposes and illustrates a bold new research program that investigates the psychology of rationality. Gigerenzer's orginal work on ecological, bounded, and social rationality provides an alternative framework to the study of human rationality. His path-breaking collection takes research on thinking, social intelligence, creativity, and decision making out of an ethereal world where the laws of logic and probability reign, and places it in the real world of human endeavors guided by simple strategies and social motives.

Adaptive Thinking is accessibly written for general readers with a background in psychology, cognitive science, economics, sociology, philosophy, artificial intelligence, and animal behavior. It also teaches practitioners including physicians, AIDS counselors, and experts in criminal law how to understand and communicate uncertainties and risks. Weniger anzeigen

To survive in a world where knowledge is limited, time is pressing, and deep thought is often an unattainable luxury, decision-makers must use bounded rationality. In Simple Heuristics That Make Us Smart, we explore fast and frugal heuristics - simple rules for making decisions with realistic mental resources. These heuristics enable smart choices to be made quickly and with a minimum of information by exploiting the way that information is structured in particular environments. Despite… Mehr anzeigen

To survive in a world where knowledge is limited, time is pressing, and deep thought is often an unattainable luxury, decision-makers must use bounded rationality. In Simple Heuristics That Make Us Smart, we explore fast and frugal heuristics - simple rules for making decisions with realistic mental resources. These heuristics enable smart choices to be made quickly and with a minimum of information by exploiting the way that information is structured in particular environments. Despite limiting information search and processing, simple heuristics perform comparably to more complex algorithms, particularly when generalizing to new data - simplicity leads to robustness. Weniger anzeigen

Humans and animals make inferences about the world under limited time and knowledge. In contrast, many models of rational inference treat the mind as a Laplacean Demon, equipped with unlimited time, knowledge, and computational might. Following H. Simon's notion of satisficing, the authors have proposed a family of algorithms based on a simple psychological mechanism: one-reason decision making. These fast and frugal algorithms violate fundamental tenets of classical rationality: They neither… Mehr anzeigen

Humans and animals make inferences about the world under limited time and knowledge. In contrast, many models of rational inference treat the mind as a Laplacean Demon, equipped with unlimited time, knowledge, and computational might. Following H. Simon's notion of satisficing, the authors have proposed a family of algorithms based on a simple psychological mechanism: one-reason decision making. These fast and frugal algorithms violate fundamental tenets of classical rationality: They neither look up nor integrate all information. By computer simulation, the authors held a competition between the satisficing "Take The Best" algorithm and various "rational" inference procedures (e.g., multiple regression). The Take The Best algorithm matched or outperformed all competitors in inferential speed and accuracy. This result is an existence proof that cognitive mechanisms capable of successful performance in the real world do not need to satisfy the classical norms of rational inference. Weniger anzeigen

The study of scientific discovery—where do new ideas come from?—has long been denigrated by philosophers as irrelevant to analyzing the growth of scientific knowledge. In particular, little is known about how cognitive theories are discovered, and neither the classical accounts of discovery as either probabilistic induction (e.g., Reichenbach, 1938) or lucky guesses (e.g., Popper, 1959), nor the stock anecdotes about sudden “eureka” moments deepen the insight into discovery. A heuristics… Mehr anzeigen

The study of scientific discovery—where do new ideas come from?—has long been denigrated by philosophers as irrelevant to analyzing the growth of scientific knowledge. In particular, little is known about how cognitive theories are discovered, and neither the classical accounts of discovery as either probabilistic induction (e.g., Reichenbach, 1938) or lucky guesses (e.g., Popper, 1959), nor the stock anecdotes about sudden “eureka” moments deepen the insight into discovery. A heuristics approach is taken in this review, where heuristics are understood as strategies of discovery less general than a sup- posed unique logic of discovery but more general than lucky guesses. This article deals with how scientists’ tools shape theories of mind, in particular with how methods of statistical inference have turned into metaphors of mind. The tools-to-theories heuristic explains the emergence of a broad range of cognitive theories, from the cognitive revolution of the 1960s up to the present, and it can be used to detect both limitations and new lines of development in current cognitive theories that investigate the mind as an “intuitive statistician.” Weniger anzeigen