Conversations with History: Institute
of International Studies, UC Berkeley
This interview is part of the Institute's "Conversations
with History" series, and uses Internet technology to share with the
public Berkeley's distinction as a global forum for ideas.
Welcome to a Conversation with History. I'm Harry
Kreisler of the Institute of International Studies. Our distinguished
guest today is Daniel Kahneman, who is the Eugene Higgins Professor
of Psychology at Princeton University and Professor of Psychology and
Public Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International
Affairs. In 2002 he received the Nobel Prize in Economics for his work
with Amos Tversky on human judgment and decision making. A former professor
of psychology, he is the Hitchcock Lecturer at UC Berkeley in the spring
of 2007.
- Background ... Jewish European
upbringing ... influence of mother ... the SS agent ... discovering complexity
... moving to Israel ... army researcher ... a successful interview
methodology
- Being a Psychologist ... observing
people ... small but interesting questions ... humanity ... psychology
of the single question
- Collaborating with Amos Tversky ...
a perfect partnership ... better than the sum of their parts ... six
hours a day ... exceeding the boundaries of discipline ... catching the
attention of economists ... the birth of behavioral economics
... matching skill sets with Tversky
- Intuitive Thinking ... judgment
under uncertainty ... shortcuts (heuristics) ... substitution ... illusion
... intuition vs. rationality ... mistakes ... "System One" ... the powerful
role of emotion ... understanding risk as a factor in decision-making
... the difficulty of changing one's behavior
- Successes and Failures of Intuition ...
successful professional intuitions ... learning from simulations ...
difficulty of imposing limits on decision-making ... Cuban Missile Crisis
... the structural advantage of hawkish decisions ... resistance to cutting
one's losses
- Conclusions ... complexity
... avoiding the traps of research ... take what the terrain gives ...
measuring experience

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