- Amos Tversky
Infobox Person
name = Amos Tversky
image_size = 240X293
caption = Amos Tversky
birth_name =
birth_date = Birth date|1937|03|16
birth_place =
death_date = Death date and age|1996|06|02|1937|03|16
death_place =
education =University of Michigan
occupation =Economist ,Behavioral Economics ,Psychologist
spouse =
parents =
known_for =Prospect theory
website =Amos Nathan Tversky, PhD ( _he. עמוס טברסקי;
March 16 ,1937 -June 2 ,1996 ) was a cognitive and mathematical psychologist, and a pioneer ofcognitive science , a longtime collaborator ofDaniel Kahneman , and a key figure in the discovery of systematic humancognitive bias and handling ofrisk . 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, he and Kahneman originatedprospect theory to explain irrational humaneconomic choices. Daniel Kahneman's autobiography for the Nobel Prize webpage contains a rich account of Tversky's personal and professional qualities and a eulogy, starting with the section "Collaboration with Amos Tversky."Daniel Kahneman received the Nobel Prize for the work he did in collaboration with Amos Tversky, who would have no doubt shared in the prize had he been alive.Tversky received his
doctorate from theUniversity of Michigan in 1964, and later taught at theHebrew University inJerusalem , before moving toStanford University . In 1984 he was a recipient of theMacArthur Fellowship . Amos Tversky was married toBarbara Tversky , then a professor in the human development department atTeachers College, Columbia University . He died of a metastatic melanoma in his home.He also collaborated with
Thomas Gilovich ,Paul Slovic andRichard Thaler in several key papers.Comparative Ignorance
Tversky and Fox (1995) 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
*
foundations of measurement
*anchoring and adjustment
*availability heuristic
*base rate fallacy
*conjunction fallacy
* framing
*behavioral finance
*clustering illusion
*homo economicus
*loss aversion
*prospect theory
*cumulative prospect theory
*representativeness heuristic
*support theory References
*Tversky, A., Fox, H. (1995). Ambiguity aversion and comparative ignorance. "Quarterly Journal of Economics" ?, 585-603.
External links
* [http://facultysenate.stanford.edu/archive/1997_1998/reports/105949/106013.pdf Stanford Faculty Senate Memorial Resolution (PDF)]
* [http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/archives/001025.html Boston Globe: The man who wasn't there]
* [http://nobelprize.org/economics/laureates/2002/kahneman-autobio.html Daniel Kahneman – Autobiography]
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