Rationality for Mortals: How People Cope with Uncertainty

by Gerd Gigerenzer

Overview

Gerd Gigerenzer's influential work examines the rationality of individuals not from the perspective of logic or probability, but from the point of view of adaptation to the real world of human behavior and interaction with the environment. Seen from this perspective, human behavior is more rational than it might otherwise appear. This work is extremely influential and has spawned an entire research program.

This volume (which follows on a previous collection, Adaptive Thinking, also published by OUP) collects his most recent articles, looking at how people use "fast and frugal heuristics" to calculate probability and risk and make decisions. It includes a newly writen, substantial introduction, and the articles have been revised and updated where appropriate. This volume should appeal, like the earlier volumes, to a broad mixture of cognitive psychologists, philosophers, economists, and others who study decision making.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195328981
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	05/02/2008
Series:	Evolution and Cognition
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	9.00(w) x 6.00(h) x 0.75(d)

About the Author

Gerd Gigerenzer is Director at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin. He has taught at the Universities of Munich, Constance, Salzburg, and Chicago. Recent books include Simple Heuristics that Make Us Smart (1999, with Peter Todd et al.), Adaptive Thinking: Rationality in the Real World (2000), Calculated Risks (2002), and Gut Feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious (2007). He has been the recipient of many awards, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science Prize for Behavioral Science Research.

Table of Contents

Preface1. Bounded and Rational2. Fast and Frugal heuristics3. Rules of Thumb in Animals and Humans4. I Think, Therefore I Err5. Striking a Blow for Sanity in Theories of Rationality6. Out of the Frying Pan Into the Fire7. What's in a Sample? A Manual for Building Cognitive Theories8. "A 30% Chance of Rain Tomorrow"9. Simple Tools for Understanding Risks: From Innumeracy to Insight10. The Evolution of Statistical Thinking11. Mindless Statistics12. Children Can Solve Bayesian Problems13. In the year 2054" Innumeracy DefeatedReferencesSubject IndexName index

Editorial Reviews

"Gerd Gigerenzer has created new, pathbreaking ways of thinking about human rationality. His ideas build on one another and are best seen as part of a coherent whole that is when the nature of his arguments emerges most clearly."— Leda Cosmides, University of California Santa Barbara

From the Publisher