Amos Tversky

This study shows how labels anchored in unconscious bias can contribute to the gender institution. It draws on interviews with women leaders in Canadian for-profit organizations to illustrate how labels relate to unconscious bias towards women leaders, how labels delegitimize or legitimize women leaders, and how women leaders react to labels. Guided by these results, the study theorizes how the micro-level practice of labeling anchored in unconscious bias can uphold or disrupt gender categories and associated gendered social roles, thus shaping the gender institution.

It is no exaggeration to say that today’s psychology would not be what it is without Daniel Kahneman’s and Amos Tversky’s seminal work on heuristics and biases, as summarised in a Science article (Tversky & Kahneman, 1974) that was cited over 7,000 times – an unbelievable rate for a psychology article. A few years before this work spread like wildfire. The rationalist metaphor of a computer-like human mem-ory and the man-as-scientist analogy conveyed in theories of consistency (Abelson, 1968) and attribution (Jones, Kanouse, Kelley, Nisbett, Valins, & Weiner, 1987) had brought about the so-called cognitive revolution (Dember, 1974). However, this naïvely optimistic view on the human mind turned rapidly into deflating pessimism when statistical tools began to dominate research and theorising came under the dominating influence of Kahneman and Tversky’s research programme.

El método comparativo con el que se envaneció la antropología desde sus inicios (y por el que la disciplina fuera cuestionada por todos los relativismos, perspectivismos y decolonialismos que han habido) nunca existió en plenitud hasta bien entrado el siglo que corre. Las nuevas y las viejas ciencias cognitivas, la psicología y las matemáticas saben desde hace tiempo (o deberían saberlo) que la similitud, la diferencia y la analogía nunca han sido operaciones transparentes ni formalmente bien fundadas  hasta prácticamente ahora.

Desclasificada la información de la Guerra Fría, muchos de los logros de las corrientes comparativistas de mediados del siglo XX han quedado borradas del mapa. Los autores comparativistas más reputados (George Peter Murdock es el caso más penoso) han sido -como hoy se dice- "cancelados" sin miramientos  en la investigación contemporánea. Incluso los que pasan por ser los mejores avances de los métodos geométricos de la representación de proximidades y distancias (identificados sin mucha razón con los análisis de Pierre Bourdieu) revelan hoy su estrechez al no poder expresar las matemáticas complejas de la no linealidad y al no distinguir cualitativamente entre un valor de magnitud un poco mayor y otro abismalmente más grande. Las tipificaciones cuantitativas rozan el absurdo al describir los valores extremos como "mayores a X" o "menores que Y" sin especificar el orden de las magnitudes implicadas.

Las últimas revisiones practicadas sobre el texto introdujeron como eje principal las más recientes elaboraciones de la antropología y la arqueología virtual en torno de la geometría morfométrica, capitalizando las innovaciones abiertas por Franz Boas (1905) y devolviendo la iniciativa a nuestras ciencias después de un tiempo demasiado largo en que proliferó el uso acrítico de estadísticas paramétricas y técnicas galtonianas de regresión preñadas de racismo.

Este libro hipertextual explora los mitos urbanos más recónditos y difundidos sobre la comparación, traza el mapa de la casi totalidad de la literatura referida a la idea y ofrece nuevas formas de afrontar ya sea (a) una posible recuperación de los saberes relevantes interpelando los errores ya perpetrados o todavía latentes, o (b) nuevas maneras de llevar a la práctica una disciplina con la que nos hemos malquistado muchas veces (la antropología, por cierto ) pero que sigue mereciendo su lugar en el mundo, tanto o mucho más que otros saberes que el mismo día de hoy siguen ocupando el podio.

Intuition can lead to more effective decision-making than analysis under certain conditions. This assumption can be regarded as common sense. However, dominant research streams on intuition effectiveness in decision-making conceptualize intuition inadequately, because intuition is considered either detrimental or as a form of analysis. Current findings in general intuition research show that intuition is a holistic form of information processing that is distinct from analysis and can be superior in some cases. To reconcile this mismatch, this article first critically assesses dominant conceptions on intuition effectiveness and then offers a re-conceptualization that builds on current findings of general intuition research. Basically, the article suggests the structuredness of the decision problem as the main criterion for intuition effectiveness, and proposes organization information processing theory to establish this link conceptually. It is not the uncertainty but the equivocality of decision problems that call for an intuitive approach. The article conclusively derives implications for further research and discusses potential restrictions and constraints.

The object of this paper is to investigate the role played by a priori arguments and by a posteriori arguments in accounts of the human capacity for rationality. This task is motivated by research in experimental psychology that has prompted philosophers to reexamine their views of what constitutes rationality. How rationality fairs as a natural phenomenon to be studied by natural science also has implications for the question to what extent epistemology generally can be ‘naturalised’.

Since Gintis is a senior economist and I have read some of his previous books with interest, I was expecting some more insights into behavior.  Sadly he makes the dead hands of group selection and phenomenology into the centerpieces of his theories of behavior, and this largely invalidates the work.  Worse, since he shows such bad judgement here, it calls into question all his previous work. The attempt to resurrect group selection by his friends at Harvard, Nowak and Wilson, a few years ago was one of the major scandals in biology in the last decade, and I have recounted the sad story in my article ‘Altruism, Jesus and the End of the World—how the Templeton Foundation bought a Harvard Professorship and attacked Evolution, Rationality and Civilization -- A review of E.O. Wilson 'The Social Conquest of Earth' (2012) and Nowak and Highfield ‘SuperCooperators’ (2012).’  Unlike Nowak, Gintis does not seem to be motivated by religious fanaticism, but by the strong desire to generate an alternative to the grim realities of human nature, made easy by the (near universal) lack of understanding of basic human biology and blank slateism of behavioral scientists, other academics, and the general public.

Gintis rightly attacks (as he has many times before) economists, sociologists and other behavioral scientists for not having a coherent framework to describe behavior.  Of course the framework needed to understand behavior is an evolutionary one.  Unfortunately he fails to provide one himself (according to his many critics and I concur), and the attempt to graft the rotten corpse of group selection onto whatever economic and psychological theories he has generated in his decades of work, merely invalidates his entire project.  Although Gintis makes a valiant effort to understand and explain the genetics, like Wilson and Nowak, he is far from an expert, and like them, the math just blinds him to the biological impossibilities and of course this is the norm in science.  As Wittgenstein famously noted on the first page of Culture and Value “There is no religious denomination in which the misuse of metaphysical expressions has been responsible for so much sin as it has in mathematics.”

It has always been crystal clear that a gene that causes behavior which decreases its own frequency cannot persist, but this is the core of the notion of group selection. Furthermore, it has been well known and often demonstrated that group selection just reduces to inclusive fitness (kin selection), which, as Dawkins has noted, is just another name for evolution by natural selection. Like Wilson, Gintis has worked in this arena for about 50 years and still has not grasped it, but after the scandal broke, it took me only 3 days to find, read and understand the most relevant professional work, as detailed in my article. It is mind boggling to realize that Gintis and Wilson were unable to accomplish this in nearly half a century.

I discuss the errors of group selection and phenomenology that are the norm in academia as special cases of the near universal failure to understand human nature that are destroying America and the world.

All of my papers and books have now been published in revised versions both in ebooks and in printed books. 

Talking Monkeys: Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet - Articles and Reviews 2006-2017 (2017)    https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071HVC7YP. 

  The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle--Articles and Reviews 2006-2016 (2017)  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071P1RP1B.

Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st century: Philosophy, Human Nature and the Collapse of Civilization - Articles and Reviews 2006-2017 (2017)    https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0711R5LGX 

Suicide by Democracy: an Obituary for America and the World (2018) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07CQVWV9C

and The Logical Structure of Human Behavior (2019)

Since Gintis is a senior economist and I have read some of his previous books with interest, I was expecting some more insights into behavior. Sadly he makes the dead hands of group selection and phenomenology into the centerpieces of his theories of behavior, and this largely invalidates the work. Worse, since he shows such bad judgement here, it calls into question all his previous work. The attempt to resurrect group selection by his friends at Harvard, Nowak and Wilson, a few years ago was one of the major scandals in biology in the last decade, and I have recounted the sad story in my article ‘Altruism, Jesus and the End of the World—how the Templeton Foundation bought a Harvard Professorship and attacked Evolution, Rationality and Civilization -- A review of E.O. Wilson 'The Social Conquest of Earth' (2012) and Nowak and Highfield ‘SuperCooperators’ (2012).’ Unlike Nowak, Gintis does not seem to be motivated by religious fanaticism, but by the strong desire to generate an alternative to the grim realities of human nature, made easy by the (near universal) lack of understanding of basic human biology and blank slateism of behavioral scientists, other academics, and the general public. Gintis rightly attacks (as he has many times before) economists, sociologists and other behavioral scientists for not having a coherent framework to describe behavior. Of course the framework needed to understand behavior is an evolutionary one. Unfortunately he fails to provide one himself (according to his many critics and I concur), and the attempt to graft the rotten corpse of group selection onto whatever economic and psychological theories he has generated in his decades of work, merely invalidates his entire project. Although Gintis makes a valiant effort to understand and explain the genetics, like Wilson and Nowak, he is far from an expert, and like them, the math just blinds him to the biological impossibilities and of course this is the norm in science. As Wittgenstein famously noted on the first page of Culture and Value “There is no religious denomination in which the misuse of metaphysical expressions has been responsible for so much sin as it has in mathematics.” It has always been crystal clear that a gene that causes behavior which decreases its own frequency cannot persist, but this is the core of the notion of group selection. Furthermore, it has been well known and often demonstrated that group selection just reduces to inclusive fitness (kin selection), which, as Dawkins has noted, is just another name for evolution by natural selection. Like Wilson, Gintis has worked in this arena for about 50 years and still has not grasped it, but after the scandal broke, it took me only 3 days to find, read and understand the most relevant professional work, as detailed in my article. It is mind boggling to realize that Gintis and Wilson were unable to accomplish this in nearly half a century. I discuss the errors of group selection and phenomenology that are the norm in academia as special cases of the near universal failure to understand human nature that are destroying America and the world. All of my papers and books have now been published in revised versions both in ebooks and in printed books. Talking Monkeys: Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet - Articles and Reviews 2006-2017 (2017) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071HVC7YP. The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle--Articles and Reviews 2006-2016 (2017) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071P1RP1B. Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st century: Philosophy, Human Nature and the Collapse of Civilization - Articles and Reviews 2006-2017 (2017) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0711R5LGX Suicide by Democracy: an Obituary for America and the World (2018) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07CQVWV9C and The Logical Structure of Human Behavior (2019)

O presente trabalho tem o objetivo traçar uma breve análise acerca do comportamento do agente econômico em situação de decisão perante a intensificação de pânico de mercado, como o observado em março de 2020 em razão do avanço da pandemia do COVID-19.