An example of the kind of thought experiments they performed is the Asian disease problem which elegantly demonstrates the power of framing. They were able ask very original and daring questions and they were brave enough to pursue those questions and break ground in uncharted territory. Their research shows a prime example of academic courage and creativity. Their collaborative research started the behavioral economics field. When Amos and Danny got together as colleagues, they started an epic collaboration streak investigating the irrational ways humans make decisions about risk. (In other words, similarity is like Bayesian subset comparison of features.) The book has a nice anecdote about how Amos instated that sometimes a lack of a feature is a feature: e.g., a three legged dog. As a result, New York is not as much like Tel Aviv as Tel Aviv is like New York. Note that, objects have varying number of noticeable features: New York has more of them than Tel Aviv. The more noticeable features two objects share, the more similar they are. People assess similarity essentially by making a list of features. Similarity is not like distance, because it does not necessarily have symmetry. What kind of psychologist I am may reflect deep traits.'Īmos's early research on similarity of things was also very interesting, and the book explains this very nicely. That I became a psychologist is probably not very revealing. On the other hand, the small decisions are very systematic. Who we marry may depend on who happens to be around at the right time of life. Which field we go into may depend on which high school teacher we happen to meet.

The small choices probably tell us more about who we are. When he was asked why/how he had become a psychologist, Amos replied: 'The big choices we make are practically random. The book contains many amazing quotes from Amos. He was very bright, which led to his colleagues coining an IQ test: 'The faster you realized Tversky was smarter than you, the smarter you are.'

He got educated at US for graduate school in psychology. He was a gifted child and starred in academia, although through out his life he was always had doubts about his talents and was always unsure of himself.Īmos Tversky was born in Israel and served in the Israel army for many years. His family survived (except the father) through Nazi prosecution and World War 2, and were able immigrate to Israel in 1948.

So I plan to read more of Michael Lewis's books: Flash Boys, The Big Short, Moneyball, The Blind Side, and Liar's Poker.ĭanny Kahneman had a very tough childhood. I wouldn't ever imagine social science and behavioral economics could be this exciting. From his pen, the academic collaboration story of two social scientists becomes a love story and a thriller. The book is by Michael Lewis, a truly great storyteller. I have recently read this 2017 book about the collaboration between two psychologists, Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman.

Daniel kahneman the undoing project