Don A. Moore

An expert on the psychology of decision making at Berkeley’s Haas School of Business helps readers calibrate their confidence, arguing that some confidence is good, but overconfidence can hinder growth. A surge of confidence can feel fantastic—offering a rush of energy, even a dazzling vision of the future. It can give us courage and bolster our determination when facing adversity. But if that self-assurance leads us to pursue impossible goals, it can waste time, money, and energy. Self-help books and motivational speakers tell us that the more confident we are, the better. But this way of thinking can lead to enormous trouble. Decades of research demonstrates that we often have an over-inflated sense of self and are rarely as good as we believe. Perfectly Confident is the first book to bring together the best psychological and economic studies to explain exactly what confidence is, when it can be helpful, and when it can be destructive in our lives. Confidence is an attitude that takes into account both personal feelings and the facts. Don Moore identifies the ways confidence behaves in real life and raises thought-provoking questions. How optimistic should you be about an uncertain future? What justifies your confidence in something amorphous and subjective like your attractiveness or sense of humor? Moore reminds us that the key to success is to avoid being both over- and under-confident. In this essential guide, he shows how to become perfectly confident—how to strive for and maintain the well-calibrated, adaptive confidence that can elevate all areas of our lives.

How to Calibrate Your Decisions Wisely

Perfectly Confident

Max H. Bazerman

Empowering Others to Make Better Choices

Decision Leadership

A fresh, research-driven playbook for how successful leaders can maximize the potential of others When we think of leaders, we often imagine lone, inspirational figures lauded for their behaviors, attributes, and personal decisions, and leadership books often reinforce that view. However, this approach ignores a leader’s mission to empower others. Applying decades of behavioral science research, Don A. Moore and Max H. Bazerman offer a passionate corrective to this view, casting today’s organizations as decision factories in which effective leaders are decision architects, enabling those around them to make wise, ethical choices consistent with their own interests and the organization’s highest values. As a result, a leader’s impact grows because it ripples out instead of relying on one individual to play the part of heroic figure. Filled with real-life stories and examples of the structures, incentives, and systems that successful leaders have used, this playbook equips each of us to facilitate wise decisions.

George Loewenstein

Daylian M. Cain

This collection explores the subject of conflicts of interest. It investigates how to manage conflicts of interest, how they can affect well-meaning professionals, and how they can limit the effectiveness of corporate boards, undermine professional ethics, and corrupt expert opinion. Legal and policy responses are considered, some of which (e.g. disclosure) are shown to backfire and even fail. The results offer a sobering prognosis for professional ethics and for anyone who relies on professionals who have conflicts of interest. The contributors are leading authorities on the subject in the fields of law, medicine, management, public policy, and psychology. The nuances of the problems posed by conflicts of interest will be highlighted for readers in an effort to demonstrate the many ways that structuring incentives can affect decision making and organizations' financial well-being.

Don A. Moore

Books

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