Irrational Economist_ Making Decisions in a Dangerous World - Erwann Michel-Kerjan [122]
Social scientists are often asked for sweeping generalizations about human behavior. Sometimes, they can provide them (e.g., “People rarely panic, unless in confined spaces with limited egress and strong time pressure”). Often, though, behavior depends on the interactions of multiple processes (e.g., “Whether people prepare for disasters depends on their resources, their access to relevant information, their trust in information providers, their ability to act, their dependence on others, their need to support others, their culture”). In such cases, simple answers, with universal application, are necessarily misleading ones, as are policies based on them.
As a result, our communications succeed when they encourage more thoughtful, respectful, informed discourse about the challenges to effective decision making. That means fostering a realization that people have both strengths and weaknesses; that intuitive choices are sometimes good enough, while informed ones are sometimes inadequate; that we need evidence, not just assertion; and that people differ in their intellectual and material resources.
THE SCIENCE AND PRACTICE OF DECISION MAKING
A distinctive feature of our science is that it considers both the decisions that people face and the resources that they bring to them. Our science also considers people and their decisions in terms that reveal how sensitive choices are to human frailties and to where help is most needed. Those comparisons embody the tension between economics, whose view of human performance can be unduly bright, and psychology, whose view can be unduly dour. Because disciplinary writing contains so many implicit assumptions, realizing the value of that tension requires more than just having economists and psychologists read one another’s work. Rather, it requires communicating directly and working together.
Much of our joint success would not have happened without Howard Kunreuther’s ability to convene people in ways that allowed them to learn from one another. One secret to his success has been his recognition that poor decisions are a sign that life is complicated, not that people are hopeless. Among the many meanings of irrational, his embodies a faith that people can make better decisions, given proper support, and a deep commitment to providing it. Expecting early, easy returns on this investment would be irrational.
RECOMMENDED READING
Fischhoff, B. (1992). “Giving Advice: Decision Theory Perspectives on Sexual Assault.” American Psychologist 47: 577-588.
Fischhoff, B. (2005). “Cognitive Processes in Stated Preference Methods.” In K.-G. Mäler and J. Vincent, eds. Handbook of Environmental Economics. Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Fischhoff, B. (2009). “Risk Perception and Communication.” In R. Detels, R. Beagle-hole, M. A. Lansang, and M. Gulliford, eds. Oxford Textbook of Public Health, 5th ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Fischhoff, B. (2007). “Non-Persuasive Communication About Matters of Greatest Urgency: Climate Change.” Environmental Science & Technology 41: 7204-7208.
Fischhoff, B. (2008). “Assessing Adolescent Decision-Making Competence.” Developmental Review 28: 12-28.
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Thinking Clearly About Policy Decisions
The Importance of Training Policy Makers in Decision Sciences
RALPH L. KEENEY
INTRODUCTION
I believe the following: Since a large majority of the individuals involved in the policy-making process have had no education or training in the decision sciences, they do not possess the fundamental knowledge necessary for clear thinking about policy decisions.
What fundamental knowledge and which individuals are being referred to in this claim? The simple answers are, respectively, the knowledge of decision sciences concepts and everyone involved in the policy-making process.
To answer the knowledge