Monday, April 25, 2011

In the Mind's Eye: Fusing Neuroscience, Economics and Psychology to Learn How People Make Decisions - Arabic Knowledge@Wharton

In the Mind's Eye: Fusing Neuroscience, Economics and Psychology to Learn How People Make Decisions - Arabic Knowledge@Wharton

Good interview from Wharton with their own Joseph Kable. A short excerpt:

"Joseph Kable: Neuroeconomics is a convergence of two influences. On the one hand, it's the neuroscientist who wants to understand what is going on in the brain when people and animals make decisions. They've come to the realization that to really understand the neural processes, you have to have a framework for understanding decisions at a behavioral level, and that's going to come from economics, psychology, judgment and decision-making. You have economists, psychologists, and others who are coming to the realization that neural processes are another source of data that could inform their own theorizing and their own modeling about how people make decisions. This could be a new source of tools for testing theories in economics and psychology."


One more look in? Oh, ok:

"Arabic Knowledge@Wharton: How seriously do people's choices deviate from rational choice theory?

Kable: I am of the opinion that people deviate much less than you might expect, given the popular and academic characterizations of people being riddled with biases and irrationalities. But I also think that as we study them, they reveal that people's minds are rationally maximizing something, just not what experimenters had expected or predicted. "

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