Quotes from Max H. Bazerman

Only the wisest and stupidest of men never change. —Confucius

Consider the recent financial crisis and its link to faulty reward systems. President Bill Clinton's objective of increasing homeownership by rewarding potential home buyers and lenders is one example. The Clinton administration went to ridiculous lengths to increase homeownership in the United State, promoting paper-thin down payments and pushing lenders to give mortgage loans to unqualified buyers according to Business Week editor Peter Coy.

We glaze over the zeroes in the quantity and make decisions in reaction to emotional images.

Scope neglect and the identifiable victim effect encourage our intuitive innumeracy and lead to poor decision making. In contrast, most of us would endorse the goal of choosing behaviors—such as contributing money or investing our time—where we can do as much good as possible, rather than simply feeling like we made a difference.

His point was that each positive step a person takes should be encouraged, rather than highlighted for what it lacks.

each positive step a person takes should be encouraged, rather than highlighted for what it lacks.

Bruce's strategy had little to do with changing people's values and everything to do with motivating them to change their behavior, with little or no sacrifice required.

Without an awareness of blind spots, traditional approaches to ethics won't be particularly useful in improving behavior. If, like most people, you routinely fail to recognize the ethical components of decisions, succumb to common cognitive biases, and think you behave more unethically than you actually do, then being taught which ethical judgment you should make is unlikely to improve your ethicality.

Republicans typically fight against new taxes and cuts in defense spending, while Democrats resist cuts to social services. Both sides believe they are defending ethical principles. Yet they both pursue their political agenda while collectively ignoring the unethical financial mess they are leaving for future generations.

illusory transparency of intent.

THE CURSE OF KNOWLEDGE: When we have expertise or knowledge in a given area, we have difficulty understanding what the problem would look like to those who lack such expertise or knowledge.4 Thus, teachers often lack empathy for students who lack their knowledge.

The forces that oppose wise reforms typically present their own distorted view of the "facts." When their positions become untenable and maintaining the status quo is impossible, these groups simply change their position and deny their past connection to claims that they now acknowledge, in the face of overwhelming evidence, to be clearly false.

Don Moore and I outlined the following steps for choosing the right option among multiple choices:17 Define the problem. Identify the relevant criteria. Weight the criteria. Generate alternatives. Rate each alternative on each criterion. Compute the optimal decision.