Customer Reviews

Thinking and Deciding

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

During my undergraduate studies in Operational Research I used this book for a course on Decision Analysis. This book covers almost everything one needs to know about behavioural decision theory. Baron has drawn from research on human psychology - this book answers questions such as how we should think and contrasts it to how in fact we do think and why this is different. How do we base our decisions on the way we think? It shows very interesting examples of research done on human biases and quasi-rationality, especially drawn from work done by Kahneman and Tversky. It also has detailed sections on Bayes' Theorem, utility and prospect theory and risk. Baron just has a way of making things much more understandable to undergraduates than some other authors.
After reading this book you will be able to understand why our thinking often differs from the theories and how we can take account of that. You will understand whether we humans are in fact rational decision makers! This was one of the only books during my undergraduate studies that I not only really enjoyed reading but I also read during my leisure time. Having completed my studies, I still find myself reading this book at times out of pure interest, so this book does not only appeal to students or researchers but also to anyone else who is interested in behavioural decision theory.

I particularly like two things about this book:

1- It provides a comprehensive review of many theories of judgment and reasoning (e.g. Tversky and Kahneman's work on choice, Jonson-Laird's work on mental models etc.). This contrasts with many other books in the area which focus on a particular theory (e.g. prospect theory), or edited books resulting from particular conferences.

2- It covers both "decision-making" (e.g. forming preferences, risk analysis etc.) as well as "thinking" (e.g. logical reasoning about beliefs). This contrasts with other books that cover only one or the other.

From the first page on the nature of 'thinking', it becomes apparent that the book should be more properly directed to the issue of, 'intent', and within that, a distinction should be made between the perspective of both the reader and external parties, respectively.