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Thinking and Deciding
Beginning with its first edition and through subsequent editions, Thinking and Deciding has established itself as the required text and important reference work for students and scholars of human cognition and rationality. In this, the fourth edition, Jonathan Baron retains the comprehensive attention to the key questions addressed in the previous editions - How should we think? What, if anything, keeps us from thinking that way? How can we improve our thinking and decision making? - and his expanded treatment of topics such as risk, utilitarianism, Baye's theorem, and moral thinking. With the student in mind, the fourth edition emphasizes the development of an understanding of the fundamental concepts in judgment and decision making. This book is essential reading for students and scholars in judgment and decision making and related fields, including psychology, economics, law, medicine, and business.
600 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 1988
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3569 people want to read
About the author
Jonathan Baron
22Ìýbooks33ÌýfollowersJonathan Baron is professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. He studies intuitions and judgment biases that impede maximization of utility (good) by democratic government. These include parochialism, the act-omission distinction, moralistic values, and the isolation effect. Relevant rubrics are Behavioral Public Finance, Behavioral Public Economics, and Behavioral Law and Economics. He is also interested in experimentation and data analysis.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
April 26, 2015
Good book on the basics of rationality. My notes below.
# Search-inference framework
> Thinking about actions, beliefs, and personal goals can all be described in terms of
a common framework, which asserts that thinking consists of search and inference.
We search for certain objects and then we make inferences from and about them.
## Search
> We search for three kinds of objects: possibilities, evidence, and goals.
1. Possibilities are possible answers to the original question, possible resolutions of the original doubt. Notice that possibilities can come from inside yourself or from outside. (This is also true of evidence and goals.)
2. Evidence consists of any belief or potential belief that helps you determine the extent to which a possibility achieves some goal.
3. Goals are the criteria by which you evaluate the possibilities. Some goals are usually present at the time when thinking begins. Additional goals must be sought.
## Inference
> In addition to these search processes, there is a process of inference, in which each possibility is strengthened or weakened as a choice on the basis of the evidence, in light of the goals. Goals determine the way in which evidence is used.
## Good Thinking
1. Search that is thorough in proportion to the importance of the question
2. Confidence that is appropriate to the amount and quality of thinking done
3. Fairness to other possibilities than the one we initially favor
Thinking can go wrong for 3 reasons:
1. Our search misses something that it should have discovered, or we act with
high confidence after little search.
2. We seek evidence and make inferences in ways that prevent us from choosing
the best possibility.
3. We think too much.
# Actively Open-minded Thinking
- Allow alternatives even if evidence seems strong
- Seek evidence proactively
- Avoid biases (primacy effect, confirmation bias, priming, etc)
- Keep in mind the normative model
## More Tricks
- Talk (or imagine talking) to an unbiased audience
- Be accountable for your beliefs
- Take the other side
# Social Dilemmas
Two emotions should be discarded if we want the optimal outcome: competition and envy.
Two other emotions are sometimes good, sometimes bad: fear and greed.
# Quotes
> Another possibility is that people confuse two different standards for thinking,
which we might call the “good thinker� (active open-mindedness) and the “expert.�
Because experts know the answer to most questions, they usually do not have to con-
sider alternatives or counterevidence. If we admire experts, we may come to admire
people who are “decisive� in the sense of being rigid. When a news commentator
criticizes a political candidate for waffling and being unsure (as might befit a good
thinker faced with many of the issues that politicians must face), the implication is
that the candidate is not expert enough to have figured out the right answer. Similarly,
a person who adopts a know-it-all tone � speaking without qualification or doubt �
is giving a sign of expertise. Some parents (perhaps because they are experts about
the matter under discussion) talk this way to their children, who come to think of it
as a “grown-up� way to talk.
Belief overkill:
> Attitudes about capital punishment provide a good example of overkill (Ellsworth
and Ross, 1983). It is possible in principle to believe that capital punishment is
morally wrong yet effective as a deterrent against serious crimes, or morally accept-
able yet ineffective. Yet almost nobody holds these combinations of belief. Those
who find it morally wrong also think it is ineffective, and vice versa.
> Like competition, envy is a motive that can be done without. It has no place, even in games.
> Perhaps the best way to think of a decision analysis is as a second opinion. As in medical decisions, it can be reasonable to ignore a second opinion, but in some cases the second opinion calls your attention to an important factor that you had ignored before.
# Search-inference framework
> Thinking about actions, beliefs, and personal goals can all be described in terms of
a common framework, which asserts that thinking consists of search and inference.
We search for certain objects and then we make inferences from and about them.
## Search
> We search for three kinds of objects: possibilities, evidence, and goals.
1. Possibilities are possible answers to the original question, possible resolutions of the original doubt. Notice that possibilities can come from inside yourself or from outside. (This is also true of evidence and goals.)
2. Evidence consists of any belief or potential belief that helps you determine the extent to which a possibility achieves some goal.
3. Goals are the criteria by which you evaluate the possibilities. Some goals are usually present at the time when thinking begins. Additional goals must be sought.
## Inference
> In addition to these search processes, there is a process of inference, in which each possibility is strengthened or weakened as a choice on the basis of the evidence, in light of the goals. Goals determine the way in which evidence is used.
## Good Thinking
1. Search that is thorough in proportion to the importance of the question
2. Confidence that is appropriate to the amount and quality of thinking done
3. Fairness to other possibilities than the one we initially favor
Thinking can go wrong for 3 reasons:
1. Our search misses something that it should have discovered, or we act with
high confidence after little search.
2. We seek evidence and make inferences in ways that prevent us from choosing
the best possibility.
3. We think too much.
# Actively Open-minded Thinking
- Allow alternatives even if evidence seems strong
- Seek evidence proactively
- Avoid biases (primacy effect, confirmation bias, priming, etc)
- Keep in mind the normative model
## More Tricks
- Talk (or imagine talking) to an unbiased audience
- Be accountable for your beliefs
- Take the other side
# Social Dilemmas
Two emotions should be discarded if we want the optimal outcome: competition and envy.
Two other emotions are sometimes good, sometimes bad: fear and greed.
# Quotes
> Another possibility is that people confuse two different standards for thinking,
which we might call the “good thinker� (active open-mindedness) and the “expert.�
Because experts know the answer to most questions, they usually do not have to con-
sider alternatives or counterevidence. If we admire experts, we may come to admire
people who are “decisive� in the sense of being rigid. When a news commentator
criticizes a political candidate for waffling and being unsure (as might befit a good
thinker faced with many of the issues that politicians must face), the implication is
that the candidate is not expert enough to have figured out the right answer. Similarly,
a person who adopts a know-it-all tone � speaking without qualification or doubt �
is giving a sign of expertise. Some parents (perhaps because they are experts about
the matter under discussion) talk this way to their children, who come to think of it
as a “grown-up� way to talk.
Belief overkill:
> Attitudes about capital punishment provide a good example of overkill (Ellsworth
and Ross, 1983). It is possible in principle to believe that capital punishment is
morally wrong yet effective as a deterrent against serious crimes, or morally accept-
able yet ineffective. Yet almost nobody holds these combinations of belief. Those
who find it morally wrong also think it is ineffective, and vice versa.
> Like competition, envy is a motive that can be done without. It has no place, even in games.
> Perhaps the best way to think of a decision analysis is as a second opinion. As in medical decisions, it can be reasonable to ignore a second opinion, but in some cases the second opinion calls your attention to an important factor that you had ignored before.
August 8, 2007
Although exceeding five hundred pages of dense text, this book was hard to put down. Baron surveys a wide variety of research concerning human thought processes. It is written from a psychological perspective, rather than a neurological one, which makes it more practical.
Baron draws together the descriptive (how we think), normative (how we would ideally think), and prescriptive (the best practical path to achieving good thinking) models of thought. He discusses the pitfalls people commonly make in areas such as assessing probability, or choosing short-term gain over the long term. He covers a broad range of topics, including: probability, decision-making, utility, moral thinking.
The book is loaded with examples, and thoroughly footnoted with current research. In reading it, I became more aware of some of my own problem thought patterns, and learned new ways to model decisions. This book feeds the reader's need for both the abstract and the practical. I don't believe one can come away from it unchanged.
Baron draws together the descriptive (how we think), normative (how we would ideally think), and prescriptive (the best practical path to achieving good thinking) models of thought. He discusses the pitfalls people commonly make in areas such as assessing probability, or choosing short-term gain over the long term. He covers a broad range of topics, including: probability, decision-making, utility, moral thinking.
The book is loaded with examples, and thoroughly footnoted with current research. In reading it, I became more aware of some of my own problem thought patterns, and learned new ways to model decisions. This book feeds the reader's need for both the abstract and the practical. I don't believe one can come away from it unchanged.
January 29, 2013
This book provides a study and academic review of theories that compare what people do (descriptive model) with what they should do (normative model). It goes through an enormous litany of theory and research on how people think and decide, exploring the contributions of rationality, logic, probability, hypothesis testing, risk, utility, decision analysis, heuristics, moral choices, and social dilemmas, to name a few. It is a dense and exhausting treatment presented in a textbook style, backed up by 39 pages of references. It is fantastic in content, but in embracing this material I often felt like I was a Mexican cliff diver plunging into an ocean of wet cement. I took on the arduous task of taking copious notes, which slowed my progress even further, so it took me a few months to complete the book. I can’t really begin to summarize its content—it essentially is the contents of a career. My brain runneth over.
August 11, 2016
I give out five-star reviews sparingly. Reading this book was, in a very significant sense, life-changing.
August 1, 2017
Surprised by how comprehensive /good the book’s definition of probability is, from a stat undergraduate’s perspective. It covers three definitions of probability - probability as frequency, as logic and as personal judgments. This reminds me thinking E.T Jayne uses probability mostly as (extension of )logic to describe physics, but Nate Silver mostly uses probability as personal probability to define uncertainty and make judgments. Jonathan Baron also seems to have a good grasp of the latter thinking probability as a personal state of knowledge and belief(I just don’t see many people think that way yet)
I have benefited and found immense pleasure in reading even sub 20 pages of the book. The downfall I have found so far is that it requires quite some mental horsepower to digest: I was once stuck on a bayesian problem for a few days(spent hours trying to make sense of the math. Don’t think this book should be considered mathematical but does contain a good amount of maths and formulas)
I have benefited and found immense pleasure in reading even sub 20 pages of the book. The downfall I have found so far is that it requires quite some mental horsepower to digest: I was once stuck on a bayesian problem for a few days(spent hours trying to make sense of the math. Don’t think this book should be considered mathematical but does contain a good amount of maths and formulas)
April 22, 2021
Recommended by Taleb: was indeed excellent! Would never have picked it up otherwise, cover is horrible.
Will post some notes from the individual chapters later...
Will post some notes from the individual chapters later...
December 31, 2018
This book is a great introductory textbook to the field of rationality � that is, the field of research built around how to make better judgments and decisions.
It was, in many ways, a life changing read.
It was, in many ways, a life changing read.
May 1, 2020
Basic philosophy of rational thinking + a primer in probability theory + thinking fast and slow, all rolled into one
December 10, 2024
4.5 stars-1 star for still being under copyright=3.5 stars
It's clearly standing on the shoulders of giants. Yet is very accessible and plainly put. There's so much in this book. Even partway through, I had already started making use of it to reason my way out of situations that I might have been more tripped up with having not read it - it is an immensely useful book. You can get a definite understanding of where and are coming from by reading it. It clearly inspired both. It would be valuable to get these ideas pushed upstream into younger and younger people so that future generations can have better thinking. But this book, specifically, would be suitable for a 2nd year university/philosophy student at the very least, perhaps read alongside Pojman.
Just a sample of what you can learn from this book:
* the basics of Prospect theory, and how to hedge the against default bias towards screwing up small-probability-calculations in day to day thinking
* how to find the subset of pareto-optimal outcomes in multi-issue negotiation, [in generally what could be a chapter that could be used for a crash course for union negotiators]
* a way to think about minority and majority groups that I'll be sure to make use of later
* Vaccines vaccines vaccines. Over and over the use of vaccines as an example of how to reason about moral issues -- vaccines form something like the 'hello world' of moral reasoning, right up there with the trolley problem.
* hyperbolic utility functions and the importance of self control beyond the default. [I've heard of this before but never knew the details]
* The absence of a large scale double-blind peer reviewed study about drinking bleach doesn't mean you are justified in drinking bleach. Things like "forcing children to drink bleach" and "forcing children to be exposed to an airborne RG3 pathogen during a pandemic, unmasked" are prima facie stupid and dangerous and you don't and shouldn't need a strong meta-analysis/RCT/etc to know that. (This might sound obvious but there are people in the wild arguing to the contrary in this current, ongoing pandemic)
* A nuanced look into why people might walk away from a conversation where disagreement/argument is expressed more polarized, and how to negate this effect. This book was refreshing after reading so many defeatist articles about this topic.
* How to get your political opponents to smarten up(not a foolproof plan but something to work with)
* An argument for that whatever the failings of the DSM-V, having one is better than not having one.
Its treatment of probability and economics generally really went well with walters' econometrics deep dive and between the two really is a foundation for economic thinking generally.
It's not perfect :
* The argument in favour of baseline altruism was a little handwavy
* There was a somewhat obvious solution to foreign students & handicapped students being penalized because of their struggling that Baron didn't seem to have the stomach for. Generally: like Steven Pinker you could get the impression of late 20th century optimism was colouring his perceptions on what was and wasn't acceptable options a little but it was barely perceptible. Especially with respect to terrorism it really does seem like there's a gap somewhere.
* His assessment of the Bay of Pigs, while refreshing and a new-to-me view of the situation really did seem to highlight the broader context of post-war culture -- and generally the more i read of this book the more I realized that the little choices we make of who to distrust, who to listen to are what wind up mattering in the heat of the moment.
* When this book was written, it was taken for granted that the basic "points assigning" and "weighting" busy work was best done by human beings, imperfectly or otherwise. There's been significant advances in since in the areas of feature extraction.
It's opened up some doors:
* moral relativism and seem to have a relationship I didn't see before: that if there's a context where disagreement is permissible or rational or whatever, it is equivalent to saying that moral relativism is appropriate in that context and vice versa. The converse seems to be also true: if aumann's theorem holds for some context, moral relativism is defeated in that context.
Generally though, this book will be on my bookshelf as a valuable reference to come back to when I need to make an important decision, or hopefully one day help someone else learn how to make better ones.
It's clearly standing on the shoulders of giants. Yet is very accessible and plainly put. There's so much in this book. Even partway through, I had already started making use of it to reason my way out of situations that I might have been more tripped up with having not read it - it is an immensely useful book. You can get a definite understanding of where and are coming from by reading it. It clearly inspired both. It would be valuable to get these ideas pushed upstream into younger and younger people so that future generations can have better thinking. But this book, specifically, would be suitable for a 2nd year university/philosophy student at the very least, perhaps read alongside Pojman.
Just a sample of what you can learn from this book:
* the basics of Prospect theory, and how to hedge the against default bias towards screwing up small-probability-calculations in day to day thinking
* how to find the subset of pareto-optimal outcomes in multi-issue negotiation, [in generally what could be a chapter that could be used for a crash course for union negotiators]
* a way to think about minority and majority groups that I'll be sure to make use of later
* Vaccines vaccines vaccines. Over and over the use of vaccines as an example of how to reason about moral issues -- vaccines form something like the 'hello world' of moral reasoning, right up there with the trolley problem.
* hyperbolic utility functions and the importance of self control beyond the default. [I've heard of this before but never knew the details]
* The absence of a large scale double-blind peer reviewed study about drinking bleach doesn't mean you are justified in drinking bleach. Things like "forcing children to drink bleach" and "forcing children to be exposed to an airborne RG3 pathogen during a pandemic, unmasked" are prima facie stupid and dangerous and you don't and shouldn't need a strong meta-analysis/RCT/etc to know that. (This might sound obvious but there are people in the wild arguing to the contrary in this current, ongoing pandemic)
* A nuanced look into why people might walk away from a conversation where disagreement/argument is expressed more polarized, and how to negate this effect. This book was refreshing after reading so many defeatist articles about this topic.
* How to get your political opponents to smarten up(not a foolproof plan but something to work with)
* An argument for that whatever the failings of the DSM-V, having one is better than not having one.
Its treatment of probability and economics generally really went well with walters' econometrics deep dive and between the two really is a foundation for economic thinking generally.
It's not perfect :
* The argument in favour of baseline altruism was a little handwavy
* There was a somewhat obvious solution to foreign students & handicapped students being penalized because of their struggling that Baron didn't seem to have the stomach for. Generally: like Steven Pinker you could get the impression of late 20th century optimism was colouring his perceptions on what was and wasn't acceptable options a little but it was barely perceptible. Especially with respect to terrorism it really does seem like there's a gap somewhere.
* His assessment of the Bay of Pigs, while refreshing and a new-to-me view of the situation really did seem to highlight the broader context of post-war culture -- and generally the more i read of this book the more I realized that the little choices we make of who to distrust, who to listen to are what wind up mattering in the heat of the moment.
* When this book was written, it was taken for granted that the basic "points assigning" and "weighting" busy work was best done by human beings, imperfectly or otherwise. There's been significant advances in since in the areas of feature extraction.
It's opened up some doors:
* moral relativism and seem to have a relationship I didn't see before: that if there's a context where disagreement is permissible or rational or whatever, it is equivalent to saying that moral relativism is appropriate in that context and vice versa. The converse seems to be also true: if aumann's theorem holds for some context, moral relativism is defeated in that context.
Generally though, this book will be on my bookshelf as a valuable reference to come back to when I need to make an important decision, or hopefully one day help someone else learn how to make better ones.
April 6, 2022
This is a deep, systematical analysis of modern theories on decison making process. There is a number of tools for decision making but the biases can affect our choice. They are covered from different angles and many study cases help to demonstrate the concept within the topics such as risk, utilitarianism, Baye's theorem, and moral thinking.
In periods of uncertainty like todays, we can ask ourselves how do I choose a better option concerning my health, vacation, study, and etc? The short answer is thinking is difficult; however, the better we are at counting, the more success we can achieve with our goals.
In periods of uncertainty like todays, we can ask ourselves how do I choose a better option concerning my health, vacation, study, and etc? The short answer is thinking is difficult; however, the better we are at counting, the more success we can achieve with our goals.
August 1, 2019
A consummate summary of the biases and heuristics field. A little dated but it supplies a firm foundation that is relatively digestable for a range of audiences seeking to adopt the methodologies contained herein.
March 4, 2022
I really liked it and recommend it to everyone at all levels.
Prior to reading many books and due to my many other personal responsibilities,
I couldn't get enough time to really write a personalized review,
but this is really a good book you have to read.
Prior to reading many books and due to my many other personal responsibilities,
I couldn't get enough time to really write a personalized review,
but this is really a good book you have to read.
Want to read
July 18, 2020
October 20, 2019
Will definitely read this multiple times cover to cover.
December 2, 2024
df 184
December 27, 2019
A must read for everyone making important decisions or taking into consideration decision systems. I think this should be standard high-school material for every student, at least to the extent that the theoretic framework for deciding is something people are aware of.
March 14, 2015
applied behavioral economics.
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