Imagine that you have to choose between:
a) A sure gain of $ 300,000.
b) A 80% probability of winning $ 400,000. and 20% of not winning anything.
What decision would you take?
Most people opt for the alternative a) although the alternative b) is best probabilistic expectations.
And if you now have to choose between:
a) A sure loss of $ 300,000.
b) A 80% probability of losing $ 400,000. and 20% of losing nothing.
a) A sure loss of $ 300,000.
b) A 80% probability of losing $ 400,000. and 20% of losing nothing.
What
decision would now?
decision would now?
Over 90% of people choose the alternative b) in the second situation.
Conclusion: This pattern is consistent , people try to avoid risks when seeking a profit, but choose the risk if it is to avoid a loss, which implies an asymmetry in decision a manifestation of so-called heuristic shortcuts .
By these seemingly simple problems to a group of experimental Daniel Kahneman, a psychologist showed how people apply reason-believe-made mental accommodations deceiving themselves in order to remove the uncertainty that bothers them so much .
Kahneman This work changed the way that economists have about how people make judgments and make decisions. It was the vision behind these decisions based only on the own interest and rationality.
This contradiction to everything set up then, I meant to get the Kahneman Nobel Prize in Economics in October 2002.
Who knew?, When we choose we do not always trying to gain or maximizing utility!. So where was the "homo economicus"?.
