Synopses & Reviews
We must make judgments all the time when we canand#8217;t be certain of the risks. Should we have that elective surgery? Trust the advice of our financial adviser? Take that new job weand#8217;ve been offered? How worried should we be about terrorist attacks? In this lively and groundbreaking book, pioneering researcher Dylan Evans introduces a newly discovered kind of intelligence for assessing risks, demonstrating how vital this risk intelligence is in our lives and how we can all raise our RQs in order to make better decisions every day. andlt;BRandgt;andlt;BRandgt;Evans has spearheaded the study of risk intelligence, devising a simple test to measure a personand#8217;s RQ which when posted online sparked a storm of interest and was taken by tens of thousands of people. His research has revealed that risk intelligence is quite different from IQ, and that the vast majority of us have quite poor risk intelligence. However, he did find some people who have very high RQs. So what makes the difference? Introducing a wealth of fascinating research findings, Evans identifies a key set of common errors in our thinking that most of us fall victim to and that undermine our risk intelligence, such as and#8220;ambiguity aversion,and#8221; overconfidence in our knowledge, the fallacy of mind reading, and our attraction to worst-case scenarios. We are also regularly led astray by the ways in which information is provided to us. Citing a wide range of real-life examplesand#8212; from the brilliant risk assessment skills of horse race handicappers to the tragically flawed evaluations of risk that caused the financial crisisand#8212;Evans illustrates that sometimes our most trusted advisers, including the experts and analysts at the top of their disciplines, donand#8217;t always give us the best advice when it comes to risk evaluation. andlt;BRandgt;andlt;BRandgt;Presenting his revolutionary test that allows readers to evaluate their own RQs, Evans introduces a number of simple techniques we can use to build our risk assessment powers and reports on the striking results heand#8217;s seen in training people to develop their RQs. Both highly engaging and truly mind-changing, andlt;Iandgt;Risk Intelligence andlt;/Iandgt;will fascinate all of those who are interested in how we can improve our thinking in order to enhance our lives.
Synopsis
A groundbreaking book on the newly discovered special kind of intelligence for assessing risks, by the leading researcher in the field, revealing how vital risk intelligence is in our lives and how we can all raise our “RQ” and make better decisions.So keen is the interest in the newly discovered “risk intelligence” that when professor Dylan Evans posted an innovative test online that allows people to assess their Risk Quotient (RQ), it was taken by tens of thousands of people and was featured in Psychology Today and across the blogosphere. Should we have that surgery? Should we trust the advice of financial advisors? How worried should we be about terrorist attacks? Evans, who has pioneered the study of risk intelligence, shows how essential it is in our lives to make good decisions when we are facing uncertainty but that the vast majority of us are actually quite bad at doing so—we have low RQs. Some people do, though, have very high risk intelligence. What makes the difference?
Introducing a wealth of fascinating research findings and using a wide range of real-life examples—from the brilliant risk assessment skills of horse race handicappers to the tragically flawed evaluations of risk that caused the financial crisis—Evans reveals the common errors in our thinking that undermine our risk intelligence, such as “ambiquity aversion,” overconfidence in our knowledge, and the fallacy of worst-case scenarios, as well as the many ways we are duped by how information is provided to us. He then introduces a host of simple techniques we can use to boost our RQ, offering a brief test for assessing our risk intelligence and reporting on the powerful results he’s seen in experiments he’s conducted in training people to develop their RQs. Both highly engaging and truly mind-changing, Risk Intelligence will fascinate all of those who are interested in how we can improve our thinking in order to enhance our lives.
Synopsis
We must make judgments all the time when we can’t be certain of the risks. Should we have that elective surgery? Trust the advice of our financial adviser? Take that new job we’ve been offered? How worried should we be about terrorist attacks? In this lively and groundbreaking book, pioneering researcher Dylan Evans introduces a newly discovered kind of intelligence for assessing risks, demonstrating how vital this risk intelligence is in our lives and how we can all raise our RQs in order to make better decisions every day.
Evans has spearheaded the study of risk intelligence, devising a simple test to measure a person’s RQ which when posted online sparked a storm of interest and was taken by tens of thousands of people. His research has revealed that risk intelligence is quite different from IQ, and that the vast majority of us have quite poor risk intelligence. However, he did find some people who have very high RQs. So what makes the difference? Introducing a wealth of fascinating research findings, Evans identifies a key set of common errors in our thinking that most of us fall victim to and that undermine our risk intelligence, such as “ambiguity aversion,” overconfidence in our knowledge, the fallacy of mind reading, and our attraction to worst-case scenarios. We are also regularly led astray by the ways in which information is provided to us. Citing a wide range of real-life examples— from the brilliant risk assessment skills of horse race handicappers to the tragically flawed evaluations of risk that caused the financial crisis—Evans illustrates that sometimes our most trusted advisers, including the experts and analysts at the top of their disciplines, don’t always give us the best advice when it comes to risk evaluation.
Presenting his revolutionary test that allows readers to evaluate their own RQs, Evans introduces a number of simple techniques we can use to build our risk assessment powers and reports on the striking results he’s seen in training people to develop their RQs. Both highly engaging and truly mind-changing, Risk Intelligence will fascinate all of those who are interested in how we can improve our thinking in order to enhance our lives.
About the Author
andlt;bandgt;Dylan Evansandlt;/bandgt; is the author of several critically acclaimed books, includingandlt;iandgt; Emotion: The Science of Sentiment andlt;/iandgt;and andlt;iandgt;Placebo: The Belief Effect.andlt;/iandgt; He holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from the London School of Economics and is a lecturer in behavioral science at University College Cork School of Medicine in Ireland. He writes regularly for theandlt;iandgt; Guardian andlt;/iandgt;and has appeared regularly on BBC radio.