Amos Tversky - Definition and Overview

Amos Tversky (March 16, 1937 - June 2, 1996) was a pioneer of cognitive science, a longtime collaborator of Daniel Kahneman, and a key figure in the discovery of systematic human cognitive bias and handling of risk. With Kahneman, he originated prospect theory to explain irrational human economic choices. He received his doctorate from the University of Michigan in 1965, and later taught at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, before moving to Stanford University. In 1984 he was a recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship.

He also collaborated with Thomas Gilovich, Paul Slovic and Richard Thaler in several key papers.

Notable contributions

• anchoring and adjustment
• availability heuristic
• base rate fallacy
• behavioral finance
• clustering illusion
• conjunction fallacy
• homo economicus
• loss aversion
• prospect theory
• representativeness heuristic

External links

• Stanford Faculty Senate Memorial Resolution (PDF) (http://facultysenate.stanford.edu/archive/1997_1998/reports/105949/106013.pdf)
• Boston Globe: The man who wasn't there (http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/archives/001025.html)