Re Mind Games John Cassidy New Yorker 2006-09-18
What neuroeconomics tells us about money and the brain
Among its other virtues, this New Yorker essay, which is featured in today’s post on my AlignMap1 blog, contains what is now one of my favorite lines from any of the literature about decision-making:
when I make stupid investment decisions.2
The article describes neuroimaging research on irrational economic decision-making that also, I propose, offers valid insights into irrational decisions about healthcare and treatment adherence and, for that matter, decision-making in general. In addition, it affords me another opportunity, which I seem incapable of turning down, to rant about the Rational Man3 assumption that befouls mainstream theories of treatment compliance and, too often, everyday clinical thinking on that concept.
Consequently, I’m suggesting that you take a look at my brief introduction to the New Yorker piece on today’s AlignMap blog post and then read Mind Games, which is available online at no charge. The AlignMap post can be found at
~Neuroeconomics, The Rational Man, & Noncompliance~
Footnotes
- AlignMap.com is my professional web site dealing with patient adherence to treatment ↩
- I envision a never-ending series of articles based on the same motif: I sometimes wonder what goes on in my head when I make stupid career/marital/political/etc decisions. ↩
- Rational Man and Economic Man are terms used in economics, law, and other settings to stipulate a hypothetical individual that uniformly and inevitably acts logically to achieve the highest possible well-being for himself using whatever pertinent information is available. More formally, The Washington University Economic Geography Glossary defines Economic Man as the “Highly abstract model of human economic behavior based on simplifying but extreme assumptions of perfect information and perfect ability to use such information in a rational way (i.e. to achieve optimal ends)” ↩
