The Psychology of Judgment and Decision Making

Author - Scott Plous ... [Goo?] [Posters]

This Paperback Book item from McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages was reviewed on 4-Oct-2008.

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1) Paperback Book The Psychology of Judgment and Decision Making by McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages. One of my favorite recommendations to non-cognitive psychologist friends in addition to required reading in several of my courses.¤

2) Paperback Book The Psychology of Judgment and Decision Making by McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages. I think it is probably the best book on decision-making psychology I read. This book is full of great insights and tips into the decision making. It gives a very well rounded overview of the many aspects of decision making: selective perception, memory, biases and heuristic, behavioral traps, etc. It is also one of the more easily read books on the very complex subject. It has a large number of relevant and easy to digest examples.

Lev Virine, author of Project Decisions: The Art and Science¤

3) Paperback Book The Psychology of Judgment and Decision Making by McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages. If you are interested in getting a glimpse into the way people make decisions under ambiguous, complex, or non-linear conditions, this book is a good place to start. I only gave it four stars, however, because it failed to leave me with a strong impression. Many experiments are covered, but there´s little in the way of practical application or insight.

The book starts out with a 12 page reader survey, which I encourage you to skip. It took me an hour to complete, but didn´t add anything to my grasp of the material. The author uses it to prevent hindsight bias, which I experienced vividly when telling my sister about one of the experiments covered in the book. "Of course," she said, like the whole concept was so obvious that the average idiot has already figured it out. That´s hindsight bias.

Another interesting concept is attitude-behavior inconsistency. One example is the road trip a psychologist took with a Chinese couple in the 1930´s when anti-Chinese sentiment was prevalent in the U.S. In the vast majority of cases the couple was treated quite well. After the trip, the psychologist anonymously contacted the places they had stayed at, and asked if Chinese people were accommodated. The vast majority of responses were, "No." Another example of attitude-behavior inconsistency given is when Seminary students on their way to give a speech on being a Good Samaritan ignored a person in an alley dressed as a bum who was coughing and moaning.

Another interesting concept was social loafing, which demonstrated that a person working in a threesome will expend 85% of the effort they would expend if working alone.

There were a few examples in the book, however, that seem to demonstrate a lack of understanding on the author´s part. One was the experiment that demonstrated that doctors could be easily misled into diagnosing the odds of a tumor being malignant at 75% rather than the true probability of 7%. This is a fascinating result with practical implications, but this topic was not explored in detail, leaving me feeling quite unsatisfied. This is the second book that has handled this experiment superficially, unfortunately.

Another example was the chart showing weather forecasters versus doctors. The author commented that weather forecasters were more accurate than doctors in their predictions, contrary to popular opinion. In reality, the chart demonstrated that weather forecasters are much more aware of their limitations than are doctors, because they get immediate feedback regarding their predictive failures, and are therefore much less confident regarding their predictive abilities than are doctors who often do not receive such feedback.

The main takeaway I got from this book was that it is possible to make better decisions, if one listens to contrary opinions, and by empathizing with those who hold them. This exercise may not change your decision, but it will help minimize common biases and decision-making errors.

The author does a nice job at the end of letting readers know that even psychological researchers are prone to making many of the judgment errors discussed in the book. He also provides a list of books for further reading, including one of my favorites, How We Know What Ain´t So by Gilovich. The Gilovich book is definitely my first recommendation for anyone just starting to explore this fascinating field.¤

4) Paperback Book The Psychology of Judgment and Decision Making by McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages. A decade ago Scott Plous produced a very readable summary of research in social psychology and (what is now known as) behavioral economics.
Our understanding of how people actually behave (as opposed to our theories as to how they should behave) has been immeasurably enriched by work dating (variously) from Herbert Simon, Daniel Kahneman, Amos Tversky, Stanley Milgram and many others.
Management education has yet to fully take into account the many insights coming from psychologists, experimental economists and others so nicely summarized in this book.¤

5) Paperback Book The Psychology of Judgment and Decision Making by McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages. I write this from the perspective of a social and market researcher, and thought I was quite aware of many of the nuances and pitfalls that can render our scientific research somewhat open to question. But Scott Plous, with his vivid, lively writing style, his acute logic and well chosen case studies shows what a hell of a minefield it is that we work in. The Psychology of Judgment and Decisionmaking is a rich resource book of human insight that is at once vitally useful (this book has opened me up to new insights and led me to rethink many aspects of research design) and awfully humbling: there´s a pair of pie charts on Page 54 that show that whatever questions we may have about margins of error, the way we happen to phrase the question may well have a much larger effect.

In total, Plous entertains, he shares wise insights and he challenges the reader. I wish Amazon had room for 6 stars. I´d give this one 7.¤

6) Paperback Book The Psychology of Judgment and Decision Making by McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JUDGMENT AND DECISION MAKING offers a comprehensive introduction to the field with a strong focus on the social aspects of decision making processes. Winner of the prestigious William James Book Award, THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JUDGMENT AND DECISION MAKING is an informative and engaging introduction to the field written in a style that is equally accessible to the introductory psychology student, the lay person, or the professional. A unique feature of this volume is the Reader Survey which readers are to complete before beginning the book. The questions in the Reader Survey are drawn from many of the studies discussed throughout the book, allowing readers to compare their answers with the responses given by people in the original studies. This title is part of The McGraw-Hill Series in Social Psychology.¤

Page Updated: Robert N. Goolsby, 1-Nov-2008, 00705047769780070504776, 620-3X0-760-470-940-920-5X0-151-8

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