Human Judgment

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xii

   PDF

2. Introduction

   • John Wilcox

   Pages 1-8

3. What Is Judgmental Accuracy: Concepts and Measurement

   • John Wilcox

   Pages 9-34

4. What We Think: The Accuracy of Our Judgments

   • John Wilcox

   Pages 35-55

5. How We Evaluate Our Thinking: The Accuracy of Our Metacognition

   • John Wilcox

   Pages 57-62

6. How We Think: The Rationality of Our Reasoning

   • John Wilcox

   Pages 63-80

7. How We Were Made: The Evolutionary Origins of Thought

   • John Wilcox

   Pages 81-96

8. What Correlates with Accuracy: The Empirical Epistemology of Optimal Cognition

   • John Wilcox

   Pages 97-112

9. How Can We Get More Accurate: Recommendations About Human Judgment

   • John Wilcox

   Pages 113-133

10. Conclusion

    • John Wilcox

    Pages 135-136

11. Back Matter

    Pages 137-148

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We humans make judgments about a staggering variety of topics. These include which medical condition is the correct diagnosis for your symptoms, whether a particular defendant is guilty of some crime or whether a particular political candidate will win an election—to name a few of countless examples. But how accurate are the judgments we all make, and how can they get better? This book synthesizes interdisciplinary research about these questions into one volume. In doing so, it uniquely draws on insights from fields as diverse as medicine, political judgment, cross-cultural psychology, evolutionary history and the heuristics and biases research program. Consequently, the book also enables readers concerned with judgmental accuracy in one field to benefit from the insights in others. Moreover, the author introduces an emerging field of research: empirical epistemology or normative cognitive science. The book lastly articulates a set of recommendations—recommendations aiming to improve our judgment, our decision-making and ultimately our lives.

• Rationality
• Judgement
• Medical Diagnosis
• Biases
• Decision Making
• Accuracy

• Departments of Psychology and Philosophy, Stanford University, Stanford, USA

  John Wilcox

John Wilcox is an epistemologist and cognitive scientist at Stanford University. There, he was awarded the highly selective Stanford Interdisciplinary Graduate Fellowship to complete his PhD in psychology and philosophy, including experimental and conceptual work on the accuracy of human judgment. He also holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in philosophy, statistics and political science from the University of Auckland, where he was awarded the senior scholar award in the Faculty of Arts and the first-place prize in political studies and international relations. He has lectured and taught for numerous courses in philosophy and social science at Stanford University, the University of Melbourne and the University of Auckland. Aside from his teaching, he has also worked on various projects to improve reasoning at the University of Melbourne. His single and co-author publications have appeared in various academic outlets, including the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.