Wiser

CHAPTER 2

Amplifying Errors

No one would get a Nobel Prize for demonstrating that human beings make mistakes. Yet we have noted that in recent decades, behavioral scientists have done a lot of work to specify how and when people err. And in fact, at least five Nobel Prizes in Economics have been won by scientists associated with behavioral economics; the winners include Daniel McFadden in 2000, George Akerlof in 2001, Daniel Kahneman in 2002, Thomas Schelling in 2005, and Robert Shiller in 2013.

Garbage In? A Brief Guided Tour

The real advances can be found in efforts to specify exactly why and when human beings go wrong—in identifying the mechanisms that lead people to err. We know that people use heuristics, or mental shortcuts, that lead ...