From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
American educator and economist
George Loewenstein
(born August 9, 1955)
[1]
is an American educator and economist. He is the
Herbert A. Simon
Professor of
Economics
and
Psychology
in the
Social and Decision Sciences
Department at
Carnegie Mellon University
and director of the Center for Behavioral Decision Research. He is a leader in the fields of
behavioral economics
(which he is also credited with co-founding),
neuroeconomics
, Judgment and Decision Making.
[2]
Biography
[
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]
Loewenstein is the son of
Sophie Freud
and great grandson of renowned
psychologist
and pioneering
psychoanalyst
Sigmund Freud
. He received his B.A. in economics
magna cum laude
from
Brandeis University
in 1977 and Ph.D. in economics from
Yale University
in 1985 with thesis titled
Expectations and Intertemporal Choice
. He taught at the
Booth School of Business
at the
University of Chicago
before taking up his present position at Carnegie Mellon University.
[3]
Loewenstein became a fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
in 2008.
[4]
Research
[
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]
Loewenstein is especially known for his work regarding
intertemporal choice
and
affective forecasting
.
[
citation needed
]
Hot-cold empathy gaps
[
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]
Hot-cold empathy gaps are one of Loewenstein's major contributions to behavioral economics. The crux of this idea is that human understanding is "state dependent," that is, when one is angry it is difficult to understand what it is like for one to be happy, and vice versa. The implications of this were explored in the realm of sexual decision-making, where young men in an unaroused "cold state" fail to predict that when they are in an aroused "hot state" they will be more likely to make risky sexual decisions, such as
not using a condom
.
[5]
Evaluability
[
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]
Along with co-authors Christopher Hsee, Sally Blount and Max Bazerman, Loewenstein
[6]
pioneered research on evaluability and joint-separate preference reversals. This theory states that attributes of an option that are well known, such as GPA for college candidates, are given greater weight than attributes one knows little about, such as number of programs written in an obscure language, when one is evaluating options in isolation (separate evaluation). However, when two candidates are considered together, the less evaluable option is given increased weight because it is possible to make a simple comparison between the two options on that attribute (i.e., more or fewer programs written in an obscure language).
- ^
U.S. Public Records Index
Vol 1 & 2 (Provo, UT: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc.), 2010.
- ^
"Research Heroes: George Loewenstein"
. InDecision Blog. January 9, 2013
. Retrieved
April 14,
2014
.
- ^
"George Loewenstein"
.
Carnegie Mellon University
. Retrieved
7 May
2014
.
- ^
"Professor George Loewenstein"
.
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
. Retrieved
7 May
2014
.
- ^
Ariely, D.; Loewenstein, G. (2006). "The heat of the moment: The effect of sexual arousal on sexual decision making".
Journal of Behavioral Decision Making
.
19
(2): 87.
doi
:
10.1002/bdm.501
.
- ^
Hsee, C. K.; Loewenstein, G. F.; Blount, S.; Bazerman, M. H. (1999).
"Preference reversals between joint and separate evaluations of options: A review and theoretical analysis"
(PDF)
.
Psychological Bulletin
.
125
(5): 576.
doi
:
10.1037/0033-2909.125.5.576
.
S2CID
17657537
.
External links
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