Judgment Misguided: Intuition and Error in Public Decision Making [Hardcover]

Jonathan Baron (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 21, 1998

People often follow intuitive principles of decision making, ranging from group loyalty to the belief that nature is benign. But instead of using these principles as rules of thumb, we often treat them as absolutes and ignore the consequences of following them blindly.
In Judgment Misguided, Jonathan Baron explores our well-meant and deeply felt personal intuitions about what is right and wrong, and how they affect the public domain. Baron argues that when these intuitions are valued in their own right, rather than as a means to another end, they often prevent us from achieving the results we want. Focusing on cases where our intuitive principles take over public decision making, the book examines some of our most common intuitions and the ways they can be misused. According to Baron, we can avoid these problems by paying more attention to the effects of our decisions. Written in a accessible style, the book is filled with compelling case studies, such as abortion, nuclear power, immigration, and the decline of the Atlantic fishery, among others, which illustrate a range of intuitions and how they impede the public's best interests. Judgment Misguided will be important reading for those involved in public decision making, and researchers and students in psychology and the social sciences, as well as everyone looking for insight into the decisions that affect us all.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Jon Baron insightfully connects ground breaking work on how we make decisions with contemporary public policy issues. The integration is brilliant. This book should be required reading for students of public policy. The world would be a better place if all government officials read this book. The ideas in this book can save thousands of lives, billions of dollars, and bring sanity to the legislative process."--Max H. Bazerman, J. Jay Gerber Distinguished Professor, Dispute Resolution and Organizations, Northwestern University

"This is a bold and important book. . . . a must read for policymakers. Psychologists who fret that their field has had too few public policy implications have only to read this book. Nobody does this meshing of empirical psychology, philosophy, and social policy better than Jonathan Baron."--Keith E. Stanovich, Professor of Human Development and Applied Psychology, University of Toronto

About the Author

Jonathan Baron is at University of Pennsylvania.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA; Trade edition (May 21, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195111087
• ISBN-13: 978-0195111088
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #594,573 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

See my web page at
http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~baron

I have to make this longer, so I'm adding padding.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Triumph of Nonsense over Sense, September 12, 2003

By 

A. Allinger (Seattle, WA, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Judgment Misguided: Intuition and Error in Public Decision Making (Hardcover)

No book I've read does a better job explaining in a calm and objective fashion, why so many policies of the US government make no sense. This is not a political book. Instead, Baron applies the findings of cognitive psychology to examine irrational attitudes where they do the most harm, in politics.

His main thesis is that a number of rules of thumb, or "moral intuitions" are used by everyone from kids to consultants to make even the most serious decisions. These intuitions include "do no harm," group loyalty, and respect for what is "natural."

Thus, vaccinations against will be dodged because they pose a risk, even when the risk of the disease is greater. A free trade agreement will be opposed if someone loses his job, even when it will lead to the creation of more jobs than before. Overpopulation will not be confronted because of an intuitive "right" to breed. More resources will be spent to get a kitten out of a tree in America than to save starving children in Africa because of the tribal instinct that instills loyalty selectively.

A few small faults are worth mentioning. Some of the biases discussed have slippery definitions: "my-side bias," "wishful thinking," or "naturalism." The style of writing is accesible, but somewhat dull. Order of the topics is somewhat arbitrary.

The author is a leading expert in psychology and decision-making, yet he shows great restraint in making dogmatic or unqualified statements, and allows for all kinds of objections. His critique of human folly follows from the work of Amos Tversky, Paul Slovic, and other researchers into cognitive biases, grounding the book in solid scientific facts.

The final chapter tries to provide a ray of hope. Baron gives the usual suggestions: education, honest reporting, cost-benefit analysis; and a few strange ones: the internet, business ethics, and trust. I did not find this very encouraging. In the Preface, Baron writes "I would like this to be read by everyone concerned with public affairs or the psychology of thinking and decision making. That is, of course, too much to expect." But what would it matter? Nobody is going to change his mind about anything--priority bias, you know?