Irrationality: The Enemy within

Sutherland, Stuart

ISBN 10: 1780660251 / ISBN 13: 9781780660257

Published by Pinter & Martin, 2013

About this Item

Seller Inventory # U9781780660257

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Irrationality: The Enemy within
• Publisher: Pinter & Martin
• Publication Date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1780660251
• ISBN 13: 9781780660257
• Binding: Soft cover
• Edition: 1753699011.
• Condition: Very Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: 47115868
• Signed: 7/28/2025 10:36:51 AM
• Seller catalogs:
  • 1
  • U
  • 9781780660257

About this title

Synopsis

New, 21st anniversary edition, with a new foreword by Ben Goldacre, author of Bad Science and Bad Pharma, and an afterword by James Ball, covering developments in our understanding of irrationality over the last two decades.

Why do doctors, army generals, high-ranking government officials and other people in positions of power make bad decisions that cause harm to others? Why do prizes serve no useful function? Why are punishments so ineffective? Why is interviewing such an unsatisfactory method of selection?

Irrationality is a challenging and thought-provoking book that draws on statistical concepts, probability theory and a mass of intriguing research to expose the failings of human reasoning, judgement and intuition. The author explores the inconsistencies of human behaviour, and discovers why even the experts find it so hard to make rational and unbiased decisions.

Written with clarity and occasional flashes of wry humour, this classic volume is just as relevant today as when it was first written twenty-one years ago.

About the Author

Stuart Sutherland was Professor of Psychology at the University of Sussex where he founded the Laboratory of Experimental Psychology. He was also a prolific columnist, with regular articles in the Observer, the New York Times, and the Daily Telegraph.