Decisions

A lively, authoritative insider’s account of how we make decisions and how decision-making research has developed over the last half century.

Decisions describes the evolution of decision science (also called behavioral decision research and related to behavioral economics) through its application to challenging personal and public policy decisions, since the inception of the field.

Baruch Fischhoff covers all major topics in basic research, including how people create options, determine what matters to them, evaluate their chances of achieving those goals, and engage their emotions. He shows how those processes play out in an exceptionally wide variety of decisions regarding health, safety, the environment, disasters, and national security, among other topics. He also examines how decision-making abilities vary across individuals and across the lifespan, as well as the ethics and politics of how research is conducted and its results are shared and applied.Preface
Acknowledgements
Foreword by Paul Slovic
What Decisions Do People Face?
Chapter 1. Analyzing Decisions: Not as hard as it seems
Chapter 2. The Ethics of Analysis: Once the terms are set, the calculations hardly matter
Chapter 3. What Does Anyone Know? Uncertainty about the present and future
How Do People Interpret Their Decisions?
Chapter 4. What Did Anyone Know: Hindsight bias and vanishing uncertainty about the past
Chapter 5. How Much Do We Need to Know: Getting the facts that matter
Chapter 6. Knowing What You Can Get: Judging risks and benefits
Chapter 7. Knowing What You Want: Facing hard tradeoffs
Chapter 8. Decision Making Competence: Are some people better decision makers?
How Can Science Support Their Decision Making?
Chapter 9. Giving Advice: A case study of its perils
Chapter 10. Making Research Useful: Nuclear power, energy conservation, climate change, drug regulation, national security
Chapter 11. Better Decisions: Empowerment and manipulation
Chapter 12. Conclusion: Science at the boundaries
Coda: The Pandemic of 2020+"Baruch Fischhoff was present at the inception. He was at Hebrew University in Jerusalem with Kahneman and Tversky when they began creating the universe of judgment and decision-making, biases, and heuristics, and what became behavioral economics. His name is most closely associated with hindsight bias, our tendency to think we knew it all along and to be “insufficiently surprised” by events. For the past 50 years, Fischhoff has been applying Bayesian inference, game theory, measure theory, and signal detection theory to an extraordinary array of real-world decision problems….The influence of Baruch’s published articles has been enormous, but it has been magnified even more by his participation on many committees of the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine, often as the committee chair, and his membership and leadership on key advisory committees of federal agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Department of Homeland Security."—3Quarks Daily"From one of the great pioneers in decision research, this engaging book shows how decisions can be better made by taking into account human behavior. Decisions is a valuable guide for individuals and organizations, as well as a compelling story well told."
—Robert Axelrod, William D. Hamilton Distinguished University Professor Emeritus, University of Michigan

"Decisions showcases Baruch Fischhoff’s true greatness, which lies in the generosity of spirit in which he views how humans make decisions and the generous ways in which he gifts the reader with practical tools to navigate uncertainty and complexity. With these tools, he has empowered countless individuals, corporations, and governments to make better, more informed decisions. We should look at this book as an invaluable addition to our toolkit."
—Larry Brilliant, CEO, Evity Technologies

"Few contemporaries of Baruch Fischhoff have thought more carefully and dealt more extensively with rational decision making. In Decisions, Fischhoff distills decades of experience into key lessons about the elements that go into sound decisions and the pitfalls to avoid. Everyone who makes decisions has something to gain from this deeply informed book."
—Harvey V. Fineberg, President, Gordon and Betty Moore FoundationBaruch Fischhoff is an internationally known scientist, studying basic and applied decision making. A long-time faculty member at Carnegie Mellon University, he is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine.