Title: |
Judgment and Decision Making |
Author: |
J. Frank Yates |
Publisher: |
Prentice-Hall, Inc. © 1990 |
Prentice-Hall, Inc
200 Old Tappan Road
Old Tappan, New Jersey 07675
(201) 767-5937
$45.80
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.