AAAS Prize for Behavioral Science Research (2008) German Psychology Prize (2011) Communicator Award of the German Research Association (DFG) (2011)
Scientific career
Fields
Risk Psychology Decision theory
Institutions
Max Planck Institute for Human Development (Director since 1997) Harding Center for Risk Literacy (Director since 2008)
Thesis
Nonmetrische multidimensionale Skalierung als Modell des Urteilverhaltens (German) (1977)
Doctoral students
Daniel Goldstein
Website
www.mpib-berlin.mpg.de/en/staff/gerd-gigerenzer
Gerd Gigerenzer (born 3 September 1947) is a German psychologist who has studied the use of bounded rationality and heuristics in decision making. Gigerenzer is director emeritus of the Center for Adaptive Behavior and Cognition (ABC) at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development[1] and director of the Harding Center for Risk Literacy,[2] both in Berlin.
Gigerenzer investigates how humans make inferences about their world with limited time and knowledge. He proposes that, in an uncertain world, probability theory is not sufficient; people also use smart heuristics, that is, rules of thumb. He conceptualizes rational decisions in terms of the adaptive toolbox (the repertoire of heuristics an individual or institution has) and the ability to choose a good heuristics for the task at hand. A heuristic is called ecologically rational to the degree that it is adapted to the structure of an environment.
Gigerenzer argues that heuristics are not irrational or always second-best to optimization, as the accuracy-effort trade-off view assumes, in which heuristics are seen as short-cuts that trade less effort for less accuracy. In contrast, his and associated researchers' studies have identified situations in which "less is more", that is, where heuristics make more accurate decisions with less effort. This contradicts the traditional view that more information is always better or at least can never hurt if it is free. Less-is-more effects have been shown experimentally, analytically, and by computer simulations.[3]
^"Gerd Gigerenzer". www.mpib-berlin.mpg.de.
^"Harding Center for Risk Literacy (Team)". Archived from the original on 2019-09-18. Retrieved 2015-08-08.
GerdGigerenzer (born 3 September 1947) is a German psychologist who has studied the use of bounded rationality and heuristics in decision making. Gigerenzer...
synthesis. George Polya Herbert A. Simon Daniel Kahneman Amos Tversky GerdGigerenzer Judea Pearl Robin Dunbar David Perkins Page Herbert Spencer Charles...
or economical. In their original experiment, Daniel Goldstein and GerdGigerenzer quizzed students in Germany and the United States on the populations...
& Dienes' (1996) example of the gaze heuristic is catching a ball. GerdGigerenzer categorizes the gaze heuristic under tracking heuristics, where human...
common generative mechanism (such as noisy information-processing). GerdGigerenzer has criticized the framing of cognitive biases as errors in judgment...
(Haselton et al., 2005, p. 726). Critics of Kahneman and Tversky, such as GerdGigerenzer, alternatively argued that heuristics should not lead us to conceive...
the actual process of decision-making. For example, Nathan Berg and GerdGigerenzer claim that neither classical economics nor prospect theory provide...
of RCT might in fact denote rational action under some conditions. GerdGigerenzer argues that some observed behavior, although violating RCT principles...
University of Chicago in 1997. Goldstein and his doctoral advisor GerdGigerenzer started the Center for Adaptive Behavior and Cognition at the Max Planck...
to better comprehension. The idea was proposed by German scientist GerdGigerenzer, after compilation and comparison of data collected between 1976 and...
technological world in an informed way. The director of the Harding Center is GerdGigerenzer. The Max Planck UCL Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing...
but unlikely so that most people will not pay a large fee to play. GerdGigerenzer explained that, in this case, mathematicians refined their formulae...
Figueredo Diana Fleischman Uta Frith Gordon G. Gallup David C. Geary GerdGigerenzer Peter Gray Jonathan Haidt Harry Harlow Judith Rich Harris Martie Haselton...
behind the defense's calculation was fallacious. According to author GerdGigerenzer, the correct probability requires additional context: Simpson's wife...
us and are usually trusted without a second thought.[page needed] GerdGigerenzer described intuition as processes and thoughts that are devoid of typical...
This puts the study of decision procedures on the research agenda. GerdGigerenzer stated that decision theorists, to some extent, have not adhered to...
that fluency as a signal for truth. In a 1997 study, Ralph Hertwig, GerdGigerenzer, and Ulrich Hoffrage linked the illusory truth effect to the phenomenon...
conjuncts. Therefore, the first choice is more probable. Critics such as GerdGigerenzer and Ralph Hertwig criticized the Linda problem on grounds such as the...
Ainslie Dan Ariely Ed Diener Ward Edwards Laszlo Garai Djuradj Caranovic GerdGigerenzer Daniel Kahneman Ariel Kalil George Katona Walter Mischel Drazen Prelec...
theory as norms of good reasoning. Opponents of this view, such as GerdGigerenzer, favor a conception of bounded rationality, especially for tasks under...
Africa in 1922. Calculated Risks: How to Know When Numbers Deceive You, GerdGigerenzer, Simon & Schuster, 2002. A Companion to Bioethics, Second Edition,...
researcher studying bounded rationality at the Max Planck Institute under GerdGigerenzer. Since 2002 he is working for the University of California, Davis,...
Global Information