The Mind of the Market: How Biology and Psychology Shape Our Economic Lives
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.25 (901 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0805089160 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 336 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2014-10-03 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
Michael Shermer is the author of The Believing Brain, Why People Believe Weird Things, The Science of Good and Evil, The Mind Of The Market, Why Darwin Matters, Science Friction, How We Believe and other books on the evolution of human beliefs and behavior. He lives in Southern California.. He is the founding publisher of Skeptic
"A captivating raconteur of all the greatest hits of behavioral, evolutionary and neuropsychology Fascinating."Los Angeles Times Book ReviewHow did we make the leap from ancient hunter-gatherers to modern consumers, and why do people get so emotional about financial decisions? The national bestseller The Mind of the Market uncovers the evolutionary roots of our economic behavior.Drawing on the new field of neuroeconomics, psychologist Michael Shermer investigates what brain scans reveal about bargaining, snap purchases, and establishing trust in business. He brings together findings from psychology and biology to describe how our tribal ancestry makes us suckers for brands, why researchers believe cooperation feels (biochemically) like sex, and how even capuchin monkeys get indignant if they don't get a fair reward for their work.Entertaining and eye-opening, The Mind of the Market explains the real science of economics.. He scrutinizes experiments in behavioral economics to understand why people hang on to losing stocks and why negotiations disintegrate into tit-for-tat disputes
Good food for thought, but much to digest Massimo Pigliucci Michael Shermer is always an engaging and informative writer, and this book is no exception. There is quite a bit of good science in here, and plenty to stimulate discussions (I used the book as a summer reading with my biology graduate students, and we all enjoyed it). However, Michael at times gets a bit too close to the evolutionary psychology perspective on things (which I am very critical of), and his libertarianism shows up here and there (again, a position I don't share). Some of my students found that there are too many personal anecdotes, though of course that's a matter of personal stylistic preferences.. "Why Evolution Is Sound Economics" according to John Kwok. Michael Shermer's "The Mind of the Market: Compassionate Apes, Competitive Humans, and Other Tales from Evolutionary Economics" is yet another insightful, and provocative book from him, making the best, most persuasive case why accepting evolutionary theory ought to be sound economics for my fellow conservatives. Shermer persuasively argues that Charles Darwin and Adam Smith were essentially looking at the same phenomena, observing that evolution via natural selection is basically nature's "marketplace" operating under laissez-faire principles as expressed in Smith's concept of the "Invisible Hand". Shermer makes . It adds up! Neuroscience says just like the rest of human anatomy has been shaped by evolution, so has the brain.That branch of neuroscience focusing on economics is called neuroeconomics.It's very fortunate that this book was written by Michael Shermer because not only is he well versed in neuroscience but he's also really coming more into his own as a writer.In telling the story of neuroeconomics, Shermer begins by reciting the obvious and significant fact that humans have spent the greatest part of their evolutionary history living not in cities and advanced societies but rather in small hunter gatherer tribes. Accordingly
(Jan.)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. Drawing upon his expertise as a scientist and the works of noted economists, Shermer argues convincingly that human beings are not exclusively self-centered, the market itself is moral, and modern economies are founded on our virtuous nature. He explores how we mind our money, the value of virtue, why money can't buy happiness and whether we are really free to make choices. Using fascinating examples—from monkeys that balk at unfair distribution of rewards after completing a task to humans who feel cheated when offered $10 of free money if a partner is given $90—Shermer explores the evolutionary roots of our sense of fairness and justice, and shows how this rationale extends to the market. All rights reserved. . From Publishers Weekly Shermer (The Science of Good and Evil