Gerd Gigerenzer to speak in London, Sept 23rd, 2008
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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, will take the stage on Tuesday September 23rd, 2008 to kick off the Economics of Behavior and Decision Making seminar in London.
Gigerenzer is Director of the Center for Adaptive Behavior and Cognition at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin and former Professor of Psychology at the University of Chicago. He won the AAAS Prize for the best article in the behavioral sciences. His book Gut Feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious
ABOUT GIGERENZER:
Gerd Gigerenzer’s CV
Through Analysis, Gut Reaction Gains Credibility, The New York Times.
Smart Heuristics: Gerd Gigerenzer at Edge.org
Gigerenzer’s Books
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What was most fascinating about the Gigerenzer presentation at Westminster Business School was the reaction of the economists, as evidenced by their exceedingly lengthy questions (or, to be more accurate, speeches). One of my colleagues timed the first question at 10 minutes long. Clearly, many economists are rattled by the way psychology is encroaching on their subject matter. For behavioral economists, there’s no problem, but many people still seem to be trying to defend classical notions of rationality. The YouTube exchanges between Dan Ariely and Tim Harford are fairly indicative of the way the arguments go. Without going into details here, I think both sides actually have some valid points. But on the whole, I think we’d have to conclude that rational economic man (or ‘the rational actor’ as we say now) is dead. Gigerenzer dealt with the points very well.
That said, I’m not convinced by all that Gigerenzer has to say. There’s published evidence of people using more than one item of information when making the two-alternative judgments (e.g. city size) of the kind Gigerenzer talks about. The specific question posed to the Westminster audience was deciding whether Milwaukee or Detroit had the larger population. I’ve heard of both, but only know anything about the latter; in fact, TWO items of information came immediately to mind – the fact that Detroit is famous for producing motor vehicles, and the fact that many famous bands have come from Detroit.
It was also curious the way Gigerenzer cited the Dhami and Ayton research on magistrates’ bail decision making. One of the key things about this research was that magistrates frequently did not use the information they were supposed to be using (as specified by legal guidelines). This seems to be at odds with the notion of heuristics being associated with accurate judgments.
September 28, 2008 @ 11:26 pm
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December 3, 2008 @ 3:15 pm
e latter; in fact, TWO items of information came immediately to mind – the fact that Detroit is famous for producing motor vehicles, and the fact that many famous bands have come from Detroit.
It was also curious the way Gigerenzer cited the Dhami and Ayton research on magistrates’ bail decision making. One of the key things about this research was that magistrates frequently did not use the information they were supposed to be using (as specified by legal guidelines). This seems to be at odds with the notion of heuristics being associated with accurate judgments.
November 28, 2009 @ 8:37 am