Quotes About Outcomes

They confirmed that father absence is not just correlated with negative outcomes but actually causes negative outcomes.

This should not come as a surprise: overly optimistic forecasts of the outcome of projects are found everywhere. Amos and I coined the term planning fallacy to describe plans and forecasts that are unrealistically close to best-case scenarios could be improved by consulting the statistics of similar cases Examples of the planning fallacy abound in the experiences of individuals, governments, and businesses.

Simple equally weighted formulas based on existing statistics or on common sense are often very good predictors of significant outcomes. In a memorable example, Dawes showed that marital stability is well predicted by a formula: frequency of lovemaking minus frequency of quarrels You don't want your result to be a negative number.

Bernoulli's model lacks the idea of a reference point, expected utility theory does not represent the obvious fact that the outcome that is good for Anthony is bad for Betty. His model could explain Anthony's risk aversion, but it cannot explain Betty's risk-seeking preference for the gamble, a behavior that is often observed in entrepreneurs and in generals when all their options are bad.

Decision makers tend to prefer the sure thing over the gamble (they are risk averse) when the outcomes are good. They tend to reject the sure thing and accept the gamble (they are risk seeking) when both outcomes are negative. These conclusions were well established for choices about gambles and sure things in the domain of money.

We spend much of our day anticipating, and trying to avoid, the emotional pains we inflict on ourselves. How seriously should we take these intangible outcomes, the self-administered punishments (and occasional rewards) that we experience as we score our lives?

When you take the long view of many similar decisions, you can see that paying a premium to avoid a small risk of a large loss is costly. A similar analysis applies to each of the cells of the fourfold pattern: systematic deviations from expected value are costly in the long run – and this rule applies to both risk aversion and risk seeing. Consistent overweighting of improbable outcomes – a feature of intuitive decision making – eventually leads to inferior outcomes.

reality emerges from the interactions of many different agents and forces, including blind luck, often producing large and unpredictable outcomes.

Groups can go in all sorts of directions, depending in part on factors that should be irrelevant. Who speaks first, who speaks last, who speaks with confidence, who is wearing black, who is seated next to whom, who smiles or frowns or gestures at the right moment—all these factors, and many more, affect outcomes.

the weighted average of its possible dollar outcomes; it is the average of the utilities of these outcomes, each weighted by its probability.

people's choices are based not on dollar values but on the psychological values of outcomes, their utilities. The psychological value of a gamble is therefore not the weighted average of its possible dollar outcomes; it is the average of the utilities of these outcomes, each weighted by its probability.

What makes some cognitive operations more demanding and effortful than others? What outcomes must we purchase in the currency of attention? What can System 2 do that System 1 cannot? We now have tentative answers to these questions.

You know you have made a theoretical advance when you can no longer reconstruct why you failed for so long to see the obvious. Still, it took us years to explore the implications of thinking about outcomes as gains and losses.

The comparison of firms that have been more or less successful is to a significant extent a comparison between firms that have been more or less lucky.

Decision makers tend to prefer the sure thing over the gamble (they are risk averse) when the outcomes are good. They tend to reject the sure thing and accept the gamble (they are risk seeking) when both outcomes are negative.

the decision weights that people assign to outcomes are not identical to the probabilities of these outcomes

The mystery is how a conception of the utility of outcomes that is vulnerable to such obvious counterexamples survived for so long. I can explain it only by a weakness of the scholarly mind that I have often observed in myself. I call it theory-induced blindness:

Consistent overweighting of improbable outcomes—a feature of intuitive decision making—eventually leads to inferior outcomes.

Life, however, is usually a between-subjects experiment

There are consequences for everything we do in life.

I certainly don't buy into the idea that positive attitudes can somehow mysteriously directly influence physical health outcomes.

Mishaps are like knives, that either serve us or cut us, as we grasp them by the blade or by the handle.

Where does it ever say, anywhere, that only bad can come from bad actions? Maybe sometimes — the wrong way is the right way? You can take the wrong path and it still comes out where you want to be?

Every single decision we make, every breath we draw, opens some doors and closes many others. Most of them we don't notice. Some we do.