Psychological insights into behavioural addictions, judgment and decision-making.
Professor of Psychology at Aston University, UK.
A passion for psychology
I am a cognitive-experimental Psychologist with expertise in gambling disorder, gaming disorder, judgement and decision-making.
Adam Smith (1776)
It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.
John Stuart Mill (1844)
It is concerned with him solely as a being who desires to possess wealth, and who is capable of judging of the comparative efficacy of means for obtaining that end.
Stephen J. Gould (1992)
Our minds are not built (for whatever reason) to work by the rules of probability.
William James (1890)
According to our view, there are two stages in reasoned thought, one where similarity merely operates to call up cognate thoughts, and another farther stage, where the bond of identity between the cognate thoughts is noticed; so minds of genius may be divided into two main sorts, those who notice the bond and those who merely obey it. The first are the abstract reasoners, properly so called, the men of science, and philosophers—the analysts, in a word; the latter are the poets, the critics—the artists, in a word, the men of intuitions.
Stuart Sutherland (1992)
My purpose is to demonstrate that people are much less rational than is commonly thought and to set out systematically the many reasons why this is so.
Voltaire (1733)
It is whispered in Christian Europe that the English are mad and maniacs: mad because they give their children smallpox to prevent their getting it, and maniacs because they cheerfully communicate to their children a certain and terrible illness with the object of preventing an uncertain one. The English on their side say: ‘The other Europeans are cowardly and unnatural: cowardly in that they are afraid of giving a little pain to their children, and unnatural because they expose them to death from smallpox some time in the future.
“Peter tosses a coin and continues to do so until it should land ‘heads’ when it comes to the ground. He agrees to give Paul one ducat if he gets heads on the very first throw, two ducats if he gets it on the second, four if on the third, eight if on the fourth, and so on, so that with each additional throw the number of ducats he must pay is doubled. Suppose we seek to determine the value of Paul’s expectation. Although the standard calculation shows that the value of Paul’s expectation is infinitely great, it has, he said, to be admitted that any fairly reasonable man would sell his chance, with great pleasure, for twenty ducats.”
Bernoulli
1738
Professor Richard Tunney, BSc, DPhil, 