Rationality For Mortals: How People Cope With Uncertainty

Rationality for Mortals EVOLUTION AND COGNITION General Editor: Stephen Stich, Rutgers University PUBLISHED IN THE SERIES Simple Heuristics That Make Us Smart Gerd Gigerenzer, Peter Todd, and the ABC Research Group Natural Selection and Social Theory: Selected Papers of Robert Trivers Robert Trivers Adaptive Thinking: Rationality in the Real World Gerd Gigerenzer In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion Scott Atran The Origin and Evolution of Cultures Robert Boyd and Peter J. Richerson The Innate Mind: Structure and Contents Peter Carruthers, Stephen Laurence, and Stephen Stich The Innate Mind, Volume 2: Culture and Cognition Peter Carruthers, Stephen Laurence, and Stephen Stich The Innate Mind, Volume 3: Foundations and the Future Peter Carruthers, Stephen Laurence, and Stephen Stich Why Humans Cooperate: A Cultural and Evolutionary Explanation Natalie Henrich and Joseph Henrich Rationality for Mortals: How People Cope with Uncertainty Gerd Gigerenzer Rationality for Mortals How People Cope with Uncertainty Gerd Gigerenzer Oxford University Press, Inc., publishes works that further Oxford University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education. Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Copyright © 2008 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 www.oup.com First issued as an Oxford University Press paperback, 2010 Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Gigerenzer, Gerd. Rationality for mortals : how people cope with uncertainty / Gerd Gigerenzer. p. cm. — (Evolution and cognition) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-19-974709-2 1. Reasoning (Psychology) 2. Thought and thinking. BF442.G54 2008 153.4'3—dc22 2007029644 987654321 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper I. Title. PREFACE This book is a collection of essays on rationality, risk, and rules of thumb and is a sequel to an earlier volume, Adaptive Thinking: Rationality in the Real World (Oxford University Press, 2000). The essays, which have been edited and updated with new material, focus on heuristic and statistical thinking. These are complementary mental tools, not mutually exclusive strategies; our minds need both. This interplay between these two modes of thinking will become evident in the course of the book. Beforehand I would like to point out some principles of the research philosophy underlying this collection of papers. 1. Topic-oriented rather than discipline-oriented research. There are two ways to do social science: One is to be curious about a topic (such as the rationality of rules of thumb) and to assemble a group of researchers who approach it from different disciplines, methodologies, and theories. The second is to identify with a discipline or subdiscipline (such as social psychology) and to research topics only within its confines. I would say that most of psychology practices the discipline-oriented version of science; in