FAGBOK: "The Psychology of Judgement and Decision Making" av Scott Plous

Hvorfor gjør vi de valgene vi gjør? Hva styrer dem og hvordan kan de manipuleres? Og hvorfor gjør nesten alle feil valg i endel situasjoner?

Boken starter med en lang rekke spørsmål som leseren skal besvare før han leser boken. Etter som forfatteren går gjennom de forskjellige teoriene som beskriver valg vi foretar så henviser han tilbake til de enkelte spørsmålene. Det er interessant å se hvor god sammenheng det er mellom svarene mine og de poenger han ønsker å belyse. Selv om jeg prøvde å tenke grundig gjennom spørsmålene før jeg besvarte dem så gikk jeg stort sett i de forventede fellene.

Dette er ikke en "... for dummies", men derimot en ganske teoretisk bok. Han går ganske dypt ned i teoriene og beskriver detaljerte psykologiske tester som han og andre har utført. Det er nyttig å ha en viss forståelse for sannsynlighetsregning for å kunne følge resonnementene hans.
Men noe av det han presenterer er praktiske teknikker som for eksempel kan brukes for å styre svarene i en spørreundersøkelse. Kan kanskje bli nyttig en gang....

Kan kjøpes på amazon.

Amazon sier:
This is a fascinating book analyzing how we are all far less Cartesian than we think. In other words, a slew of predictable human bias flaws what we feel is our own objective judgment. The author eminently demonstrates this point by forcing the reader to take a 39 questions test at the beginning of the book. This test is stuffed with all the traps that illustrate the human judgment flaws that he analyzes thoroughly in following specific chapters.

You can view the test as a very entertaining IQ test from hell. The questions seem often simple. But, they are not. Other times, they are obviously difficult. I got a bit more than half of them correct. This was mainly because I had some knowledge or experience regarding certain traps the questions presented. I had made the mistake before. So, I learned from that. When I did not have any prior knowledge of a question, my results were very human, meaning not that good. But, learning the correct answer was both fun and educating.

The author touches on several fascinating probability and statistic concepts. One of them being the Bayes theorem, which suggests that medical screen test can be highly unreliable despite being touted as 80% to 90% accurate. In other words, you better understand the Bayes theorem better than the medical specialists who screen you for various diseases. Because, based on the author's study, doctors don't have a clue. Another chapter had an excellent discussion on correlation vs. causation. This includes some tricky nuances that many analysts in the financial industry trip upon. Another interesting probability concept is why it takes only 23 people in a room to have greater than a 50% that two of them share the same birthday. This seems impossible, but it is true.

The book has obviously a lot more than I am letting on here. I am not going to ruin it for you. It is really fun, educating, and interesting to read. You will also learn a whole lot about how you think, how others think, and how people think in groups. You will also understand how tricky it is to ask truly open and objective questions. Also, polls that seem objective are not due to the subjective structure of the question. I think you will enjoy this book, and I strongly recommend it.
Gaetan Lion

Terningkast 4