Gerd Gigerenzer

"Where do new ideas come from? What is social intelligence? How can innumeracy be turned into insight? Why do social scientists perform mindless statistical rituals? This new book addresses these questions as it attempts to rethink rationality as adaptive thinking: to understand how minds cope with their environments, both ecological and social. Together, these collected papers develop the idea that human thinking - from scientific creativity to simply understanding what a positive HIV test means - "happens" partly outside the mind.". "Gerd Gigerenzer proposes and illustrates a bold new research program that investigates the psychology of rationality. Gigerenzer's original concepts of ecological, bounded, and social rationality provide an alternative framework to the study of human rationality. His path-breaking collection takes research on thinking, social intelligence, creativity, and decisionmaking out of an ethereal world - where the laws of logic and probability reign - and places it into the real world of human tools, heuristics, and social motives.". "Adaptive Thinking is written for general readers with an interest in psychology, cognitive science, economics, sociology, philosophy, artificial intelligence, and animal behavior. It also teaches a practical audience (such as physicians, AIDS counselors, and experts in criminal law) how to understand and communicate uncertainties and risks."--BOOK JACKET.

The tenth book in the InCryptid series. Just when Sarah Zellaby, adopted Price cousin and telepathic ambush predator, thought that things couldn’t get worse, she’s had to go and prove herself wrong. After being kidnapped and manipulated by her birth family, she has undergone a transformation called an instar, reaching back to her Apocritic origins to metamorphize. While externally the same, she is internally much more powerful, and much more difficult to control. Even by herself. After years of denial, the fact that she will always be a cuckoo has become impossible to deny. Now stranded in another dimension with a handful of allies who seem to have no idea who she is–including her cousin Annie and her maybe-boyfriend Artie, both of whom have forgotten their relationship–and a bunch of cuckoos with good reason to want her dead, Sarah must figure out not only how to contend with her situation, but with the new realities of her future. What is she now? Who is she now? Is that person someone she can live with? And when all is said and done, will she be able to get the people she loves, whether or not they’ve forgotten her, safely home?

"Risk-taking is essential for innovation, fun, and the courage to face the uncertainties in life. Yet for many important decisions, we are often presented with statistics and probabilities that we don't really understand and we inevitably rely on experts in the relevant fields—policy makers, financial advisors, doctors—to analyse and choose for us. But what if they don't quite understand the way the information is presented either? How do we make sure we're asking doctors the right questions about proposed treatment? Is there a rule of thumb that could help choose the right partner? This entertaining book shows us how to recognize when we don't have all the information and know what to do about it. Gerd Gigerenzer looks at examples from every aspect of life to identify the reasons for our collective misunderstanding of the risks we face. He shows how we can all use simple rules to avoid being manipulated into unrealistic fears or hopes, to make better-informed decisions, and to learn to understand risk and uncertainty in our own lives."--Publisher's description.

An engaging explanation of the science behind Malcolm Gladwell?s bestselling BlinkGerd Gigerenzer is one of the researchers of behavioral intuition responsible for the science behind Malcolm Gladwell?s bestseller Blink. Gladwell showed us how snap decisions often yield better results than careful analysis. Now, Gigerenzer explains why our intuition is such a powerful decision-making tool. Drawing on a decade of research at the Max Plank Institute, Gigerenzer demonstrates that our gut feelings are actually the result of unconscious mental processes?processes that apply rules of thumb that we?ve derived from our environment and prior experiences. The value of these unconscious rules lies precisely in their difference from rational analysis?they take into account only the most useful bits of information rather than attempting to evaluate all possible factors. By examining various decisions we make?how we choose a spouse, a stock, a medical procedure, or the answer to a million-dollar game show question?Gigerenzer shows how gut feelings not only lead to good practical decisions, but also underlie the moral choices that make our society function.In the tradition of Blink and Freakonomics, Gut Feelings is an exploration of the myriad influences and factors (nature and nurture) that affect how the mind works, grounded in cutting-edge research and conveyed through compelling real-life examples.

How do people make decisions when time is limited, information unreliable, and the future uncertain? This book tells how based on the work of Herbert Simon, the Adaptive Behavior and Cognition (ABC) Group has developed a research programme on simple heuristics, also known as fast and frugal heuristics.

En prenant appui sur différents domaines de la connaissance comme la médecine, la psychologie, le marketing ou encore la criminologie, l'auteur montre que c'est bien souvent le geste ou la décision intuitive qui s'avèrent payants lorsqu'il s'agit de passer à l'action.

Posits that "most of us, including doctors, lawyers, financial advisers, and elected officials, misunderstand statistics much more often than we think, leaving us not only misinformed, but vulnerable to exploitation. Yet there is hope. Anyone can learn to make better decisions for their health, finances, family, and business without needing to consult an expert or a super computer, and Gigerenzer shows us how"--

Statistical illiteracy can have an enormously negative impact on decision making. This book brings together applied and theoretical research on risks and decision making across the fields of medicine, psychology, and economics. Collectively, the chapters demonstrate why the frame in which statistics are communicated is essential for broader understanding and sound decision making, and that understanding risks and uncertainty has wide-reaching implications for daily life.