JDM TALKS AT THE SOCIETY FOR MEDICAL DECISION MAKING CONFERENCE The 2008 annual meetings of the Society for Judgment and Decision Making (SJDM) and the Society for Medical Decision Making (SMDM) included a “symposium exchange.” A symposium by SJDM members was presented at SMDM 2008 (Pennsylvania, PA) and a symposium by SMDM members was presented […]
‘TIS THE SEASON TO GIVE Eric Johnson and Dan Goldstein have voiced an opinion on defaults as they relate to organ donation in today’s Wall Street Journal. Your Dec. 17 editorial “Wait-Listed to Death” fails to mention an alternative to paying organ donors. This alternative, common in Europe, eliminates costs while producing an appreciable increase […]
THE MILES PER GALLON ILLUSION CALCULATOR In the US, 2008 was the year in which the results of bad decisions hit (the economy), the year people voted for change (the election) and the year that policymakers started to acknowledge that the effects of choice architecture are too strong to ignore. Keeping with the theme of […]
DEFAULTS IN BRUSSELS Last week, Decision Science News spoke at a European Commission conference on “How Can Behavioural Economics Improve Policies Affecting Consumers?“, which was terrifying, as it meant addressing a large room of people with name cards and microphones and simultaneous translators behind glass walls. The DSN editor tried to emphasize how one must […]
OVERCONFIDENCE? One of the most enjoyable types of academic exchange is that of type 17a, in which one group of scholars argues that a psychological tendency is irrational and another group argues that the same tendency is reasonable. It can be even more fun when the groups belong to different fields. If these two assertions […]
TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE OF THE INCOME DISTRIBUTION Think you know it all? A good deal of decision-making research centers around people’s abilities to make accurate estimates and inferences. Those who like to test their knowledge might be interested in this fun video game / Web experiment put together by Decision Science News and Lionel Page. […]
INCREASE VOTER TURNOUT AMONG STUDENTS Columbia University’s Eric Johnson and Elke Weber have created Teachers4Turnout, a Web site / classroom activity to encourage voting among students. Check it out at http://www.teachers4turnout.org. Here’s how they describe it: The upcoming election is important to us, but even more important to our students. Decisions made by those officials […]
DOES EVIDENCE-BASED MEDICINE SUPPORT PARACHUTE USE? In 2003, the characteristically less-than-hilarious BMJ published a satirical article entitled “Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma related to gravitational challenge: systematic review of randomised controlled trials.” It has its funny parts. The authors’ point is summarized in the abstract’s conclusion: Conclusions: As with many interventions intended […]
GERD GIGERENZER ON IGNORING INFORMATION FOR BETTER DECISIONS Who: Gerd Gigerenzer, Director, Max Planck Institute, Berlin What: The Rationality of Heuristics: Ignoring Information for Better Decisions Where: Westminster Business School, Hogg Lecture Theatre When: 17h15-19h The academic year in London will get off to a stimulating start as one of Psychology’s leading intellectuals, Gerd Gigerenzer, […]
GET A FEELING FOR ACCIDENTAL SIGNIFICANCE Click through to site to try We were exploring Jerry Dallal’s site and came across this cute gizmo linked to as “a valuable lesson”. Clicking the button simulates running 20 significance tests, each of which has a 5% chance of coming up significant when no effect is present. Underneath […]
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