Instinct Can Beat Analytical Thinking – Great article with podcast via HBR – full link here (Harvard Business Review) – below is excerpt with the podcast
Researchers have confronted us in recent years with example after example of how we humans get things wrong when it comes to decision making. We misunderstand probability, we’re myopic, we pay attention to the wrong things, and we just generally mess up. This popular triumph of the “heuristics and innovations ” literature pioneered by psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky has made us aware of flaws that economics long glossed over, and led to interesting innovations in retirement planning and government policy.
It is not, however, the only lens through which to view decision making. Psychologist Gerd Gigerenzer has spent his career focusing on the ways in which we get things right, or could at least learn to. In Gigerenzer’s view, using heuristics, rules of thumb, and other shortcuts often leads to better decisions than the models of “rational” decision-making developed by mathematicians and statisticians. At times this belief has led the managing director of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin into pretty fierce debates with his intellectual opponents. It has also led to a growing body of fascinating research, and a growing library of books for lay readers, the latest of which, Risk Savvy: How to Make Good Decisions, is just out.
During a visit to HBR’s New York office, Gigerenzer discussed his work for an Ideacast podcast, which you can listen to here:
See full article on Instinct Can Beat Analytical Thinking by Harvard Business Review
