The Myth of Experience
Why We Learn the Wrong Lessons, and Ways to Correct Them
Will be published approx. on 1. September 2020
Book
Hardback
288 pages
978-1-5417-4205-5 (ISBN)
Description
Experience is a great teacher-except when it isn't.
Our personal experience is key to who we are and what we do. We judge others by their experience and are judged by ours. Society venerates experience. From doctors to teachers to managers to presidents, the more experience the better. It's not surprising then, that we often fall back on experience when making decisions, an easy way to make judgements about the future, a constant teacher that provides clear lessons. Yet, this intuitive reliance on experience is misplaced.
In The Myth of Experience, behavioral scientists Emre Soyer and Robin Hogarth take a transformative look at experience and the many ways it deceives and misleads us. From distorting the past to limiting creativity to reducing happiness, experience can cause misperceptions and then reinforce them without our awareness. Instead, the authors argue for a nuanced approach, where a healthy skepticism toward the lessons of experience results in more reliable decisions and sustainable growth.
With real-life examples from bloodletting to personal computers to pandemics, and distilling cutting edge research, Soyer and Hogarth illustrate the flaws of experience as a guide to decision making and provide the remedies needed to improve our judgments and choices-in the workplace and beyond.
Our personal experience is key to who we are and what we do. We judge others by their experience and are judged by ours. Society venerates experience. From doctors to teachers to managers to presidents, the more experience the better. It's not surprising then, that we often fall back on experience when making decisions, an easy way to make judgements about the future, a constant teacher that provides clear lessons. Yet, this intuitive reliance on experience is misplaced.
In The Myth of Experience, behavioral scientists Emre Soyer and Robin Hogarth take a transformative look at experience and the many ways it deceives and misleads us. From distorting the past to limiting creativity to reducing happiness, experience can cause misperceptions and then reinforce them without our awareness. Instead, the authors argue for a nuanced approach, where a healthy skepticism toward the lessons of experience results in more reliable decisions and sustainable growth.
With real-life examples from bloodletting to personal computers to pandemics, and distilling cutting edge research, Soyer and Hogarth illustrate the flaws of experience as a guide to decision making and provide the remedies needed to improve our judgments and choices-in the workplace and beyond.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
United States
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
With dust jacket
Dimensions
Height: 241 mm
Width: 158 mm
Thickness: 32 mm
Weight
487 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-5417-4205-5 (9781541742055)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Emre Soyer | Robin M. Hogarth
The Myth of Experience
Why We Learn the Wrong Lessons, and Ways to Correct Them
E-Book
09/2020
PublicAffairs
€13.99
Available for download
Persons
Emre Soyer is a behavioral scientist and an entrepreneur. After working in and establishing several startups, he has completed his PhD in behavioral decision making. Since then, he has been conducting research and working with a variety of companies and sectors, building tools and methods to improve individual and team decisions. He's also been collaborating with business schools, including INSEAD and ESSEC in France, Cass Business School in the United Kingdom, TUM in Germany, SDA Bocconi and Politecnico di Milano in Italy, USI and St. Gallen in Switzerland, and Ozyegin University in Turkey. currently lives in Istanbul, Turkey.
Robin Hogarth became hooked in his twenties on questions involving how people make decisions. That fascination still exists five decades later and has led to a career that, sparked by a PhD at the University of Chicago, involved academic positions at INSEAD in France, the University of Chicago, and Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, where he is currently an emeritus professor. He has published a wide range of studies on judgment and decision-making in leading scholarly journals and several books (including Educating Intuition, 2001). He has advised and inspired generations of researchers in the field of judgment and decision-making. He currently lives in Barcelona, Spain.
Robin Hogarth became hooked in his twenties on questions involving how people make decisions. That fascination still exists five decades later and has led to a career that, sparked by a PhD at the University of Chicago, involved academic positions at INSEAD in France, the University of Chicago, and Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, where he is currently an emeritus professor. He has published a wide range of studies on judgment and decision-making in leading scholarly journals and several books (including Educating Intuition, 2001). He has advised and inspired generations of researchers in the field of judgment and decision-making. He currently lives in Barcelona, Spain.