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Amos Tversky

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Amos Tversky
Born(1937-03-16)March 16, 1937
Haifa, Mandatory Palestine
DiedJune 2, 1996(1996-06-02) (aged 59)
Stanford, California
NationalityIsraeli
Alma materUniversity of Michigan
Hebrew University
Known forProspect theory
Heuristics & biases
AwardsGrawemeyer Award in Psychology (2003)
Scientific career
FieldsCognitive psychology, Behavioral economics
InstitutionsHebrew University
Stanford University

Amos Nathan Tversky (Hebrew: עמוס טברסקי; March 16, 1937 – June 2, 1996) was a cognitive and mathematical psychologist, a student of cognitive science, a collaborator of Daniel Kahneman, and a figure in the discovery of systematic human cognitive bias and handling of risk. Much of his early work concerned the foundations of measurement. He was co-author of a three-volume treatise, Foundations of Measurement (recently reprinted). His early work with Kahneman focused on the psychology of prediction and probability judgment; later they worked together to develop prospect theory, which aims to explain irrational human economic choices and is considered one of the seminal works of behavioral economics. Six years after Tversky's death, Kahneman received the 2002 Nobel Prize in Economics for the work he did in collaboration with Amos Tversky.[1] (The prize is not awarded posthumously.) Kahneman told The New York Times in an interview soon after receiving the honor: "I feel it is a joint prize. We were twinned for more than a decade."[2] Tversky also collaborated with many leading researchers including Thomas Gilovich, Itamar Simonson, Paul Slovic and Richard Thaler. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Tversky as the 93rd most cited psychologist of the 20th century, tied with Edwin Boring, John Dewey, and Wilhelm Wundt.[3]

Biography

Tversky was born in Haifa, British Palestine (now Israel). He served with distinction in the Israel Defense Forces, rising to the rank of captain and being decorated for bravery. He received his undergraduate education at Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel, and his doctorate from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in 1964. He later taught at Hebrew University before moving to Stanford University. In 1980 he became a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.[4] In 1984 he was a recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship, and in 1985 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.[5] Amos Tversky was married to Barbara Tversky, now a professor in the human development department at Teachers College, Columbia University. Tversky, co-recipient with Daniel Kahneman, earned the 2003 University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award for Psychology.[6] He died of a metastatic melanoma.[7]

Career

Comparative Ignorance

Tversky and Fox (1995)[8] addressed ambiguity aversion, the idea that people do not like ambiguous gambles or choices with ambiguity, with the comparative ignorance framework. Their idea was that people are only ambiguity averse when their attention is specifically brought to the ambiguity by comparing an ambiguous option to an unambiguous option. For instance, people are willing to bet more on choosing a correct colored ball from an urn containing equal proportions of black and red balls than an urn with unknown proportions of balls when evaluating both of these urns at the same time. However, when evaluating them separately, people are willing to bet approximately the same amount on either urn. Thus, when it is possible to compare the ambiguous gamble to an unambiguous gamble people are averse — but not when one is ignorant of this comparison.

Notable contributions

The shape of the value (utility) function in prospect theory. The asymmetry of the function corresponds to loss aversion.

Tversky Intelligence Test

As recounted by Malcolm Gladwell in 2013's David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants, Tversky's peers thought so highly of him that they devised a tongue-in-cheek one-part test for measuring intelligence. As related to Gladwell by psychologist Adam Alter, the Tversky Intelligence Test was "The faster you realized Tversky was smarter than you, the smarter you were."[9]

References

  1. ^ Altman, Daniel (10 October 2002). "A Nobel That Bridges Economics and Psychology". The New York Times. Retrieved 14 March 2009.
  2. ^ Goode, Erica (5 November 2002). "A Conversation with Daniel Kahneman; On Profit, Loss and the Mysteries of the Mind". The New York Times. Retrieved 14 March 2009.
  3. ^ Haggbloom, Steven J.; Warnick, Renee; Warnick, Jason E.; Jones, Vinessa K.; Yarbrough, Gary L.; Russell, Tenea M.; Borecky, Chris M.; McGahhey, Reagan; Powell, John L., III (2002). "The 100 most eminent psychologists of the 20th century". Review of General Psychology. 6 (2): 139–152. doi:10.1037/1089-2680.6.2.139. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |displayauthors= ignored (|display-authors= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  4. ^ http://www.amacad.org/publications/BookofMembers/ChapterT.pdf
  5. ^ "National Academy of Sciences".
  6. ^ "2002- Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky". Archived from the original on 2015-07-23.
  7. ^ Freeman, Karen (6 June 1996). "Amos Tversky, Expert on Decision Making, Is Dead at 59". The New York Times. Retrieved 14 March 2009.
  8. ^ Fox, Craig R.; Amos Tversky (1995). "Ambiguity Aversion and Comparative Ignorance". Quarterly Journal of Economics. 110 (3): 585–603. doi:10.2307/2946693. JSTOR 2946693.
  9. ^ Malcolm Gladwell, David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants, 2013, page 103
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