Prentice-Hall, Inc Description: The author intends this 430 page book to be an introduction to the growing body of study and research on the judgment and decision making process of human beings. It is aimed at juniors, seniors, and beginning graduate and professional students. It hits the mark. The material is complex and difficult because so much of it is counterintuitive. However, a careful, deliberate, and thorough working through each of the chapters, the key terms, the exercises, and the study questions will produce understanding and a grasp of the fundamental principles involved in the judgment and decision-making theory and research. This is a book that must be studied. The formulas and symbolic logic must be followed carefully and understood before continuing. Chapter 1 is an overview and sets forth three aims: 1) to understand how people make decisions, 2) to understand how good people's decisions are and how frequently they make errors, and 3) to suggest how decisions can be made better and more accurate. Chapters 2 to 7 discuss likelihood judgments. Chapter 2 shows how most people arrive at their judgments about the likelihood of events. Chapter 3 deals with accuracy of judgment and decision and how to measure it. Chapter 4 gives information on how accurate actual real world judgments are. Chapter 5 deals with the consistency of real judgments. Chapter 6 describes formal, logical problem solving. Chapter 7 discusses the presumptions that may be involved in the specific content of given situations. Chapters 8 to 13 are focused on how a person actually arrives
at a judgment and makes a decision. Chapter 8 presents the concepts that are the
most basic in making decisions. Chapter 9 describes the dominant idea in
decision theory, expected utility. Chapter 10 describes theories that are
proposed as alternatives to the concept of expected utility. Chapter 11 deals
with concepts that are linked to the idea of expected utility. Chapter 12 begins
a discussion of the way people characterize decision situations. Chapter 13
details influences on how a person represents a given decision situation. Discussion: The importance of understanding judgment and decision-making theory and research cannot be overstated for those professionals and others concerned with the system for dealing with child abuse. Making a judgment and a decision about whether a given child has been abused is at the core of the effort to reduce the frequency of child abuse. Making a decision about the welfare of a child, the best interests of a child, and the family interactions are basic to dispositional judgments. Such decisions and judgments are basic to any research aimed at finding facts upon which to base improved techniques. The decision about an individual child is basic to the intervention of the state and the involvement of the justice system. The application of the parens patriae doctrine by the state depends upon decisions and judgments. The determinations by judges and juries reflect the human decision making process examined here. The theorizing and research that has gone on in the last ten years around the concepts of judgment and decision making are among the most exciting and challenging work going on in psychology. Yet, for many psychologists, and surely for many other professionals, this crucial work remains either unknown or dismissed as too arcane, difficult, and mechanical, not respecting the essential humanity and creativity of human beings. Therefore, this information which could lead to a dramatic improvement in the way we make decisions and increase the accuracy of the decision making process is largely ignored. Yates uses many realistic, commonplace, and well known situations of actual decisions to illustrate his points. Decision making by weather forecasters, prediction in sports, and common business decisions are examples of his effort to translate the concepts of probability theory into understandable information. He uses many graphs and illustrations to let the student get hold of the principles. The book is based upon classes he has taught and his skill as a teacher comes through in the way this book is arranged and presented. One of the areas where this information is ignored, and indeed actively resisted, is in the justice system. Lionel Tribe's influential Harvard Law Review article (Trial by mathematics: Precision and ritual in the legal process,1971, 84, 1329-1351) decries the introduction of quantitative methods and information from the science of psychology into the deliberations of the justice system. A major thesis of Tribe's article is that symbolic functions of a trial are often more important than accurate fact finding. While a trial may be more than accurate fact finding, it cannot be less. Professionals concerned with dealing with accusations of child abuse must understand the material in this book. Anybody who is involved in the process of making judgments and decisions regarding the lives and welfare of other human beings must know this body of research. Anything less is gross negligence or stunning incompetence. A judge who is not familiar with the information in this book cannot be relied upon to conduct a fair and impartial proceeding. An attorney who does not know this material cannot effectively and adequately prosecute or defend a person accused. A juror who is not educated about this material cannot be relied upon to fulfill the obligation to make a reasoned, fair, calm decision about guilt or innocence. Mental health professionals who make decisions to "substantiate" or evaluate an allegation or report of child abuse without the ability or knowledge to use this understanding of decision making processes are committing scientific fraud. This book is indispensable for attorneys, psychologists, social workers, judges, physicians, and law enforcement. It will be difficult to master and will require systematic and persevering study. But, when mastered, the benefits will be great. An attorney who invests the work necessary to benefit from this book will be able to improve strategies and trial tactics and do a better job whether prosecutor or defense counsel. A mental health professional will be better able to control the cognitive activities included in decision making and can expect to make more accurate decisions. A judge will do a better job of assessing properly what evidence should be allowed to be presented to the jury and what information they need to do a better job as fact finders. Reviewed by Ralph Underwager, Institute for Psychological Therapies, Northfield, Minnesota.
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