Navigation überspringen
Risk Savvy
Book

Risk Savvy

How to Make Good Decisions

Viking, 2014 Mehr


Editorial Rating

9

Qualities

  • Innovative
  • Applicable

Recommendation

Gerd Gigerenzer, director of the Max Planck Institute in Germany, offers a brightly written guide to better decision making. He reports a widespread lack of “risk literacy,” and says that confusion over probabilities is pervasive among average people as well as among professionals in many fields, including medicine and investment management. He recommends using heuristics, or rules of thumb, to derive the best solutions for problems with unknown risks and he cautions that complicated solutions seldom fix complex problems. Gigerenzer also discusses why you can grant more credence than you might think to both trust and intuition. getAbstract recommends this intelligent overview to everyone who wants to make better decisions and cope with risk more skillfully – and especially to investors, students, entrepreneurs and cancer patients, who may take a keen interest in what Gigerenzer says about probabilities.

Take-Aways

  • A lack of “risk literacy” impedes your ability to assess hazards and make decisions.
  • Most people – even those in medicine and finance – misunderstand probabilities.
  • The “illusion of certainty” is a common risk-analysis error. Nothing is certain.

About the Author

Gerd Gigerenzer, the director of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, also wrote Gut Feelings.


Comment on this summary or Diskussion beginnen

  • Avatar
  • Avatar
    T. D. 9 years ago
    Awesome read!
  • Avatar
    K. G. getAbstract 9 years ago
    @Jeffrey Pobst: You were absolutely right about the Monty Hall Problem; we have corrected it in the summary. Thanks for the hint!
  • Avatar
    C. D. 9 years ago
    Great abstract