The Psychology of Human Misjudgment
The Psychology of Human Misjudgment by Charles T. Munger
Selections from three of Charlie Munger's talks, combined into one talk never made, after revisions by Charlie in 2005 that included considerable new material. The three talks were: (1) The Bray Lecture at the Caltech Faculty Club, February 2, 1992; (2) Talk under the Sponsorship of the Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies at the Harvard Faculty Club, October 6, 1994; and the extensive revision by Charlie in 2005, made from memory unassisted by any research, occurred because Charlie thought he could do better at age eighty-one than he did more than ten years earlier when he (1) knew less and was more harried by a crowded life and (2) was speaking from rough notes instead of revising transcripts. (3) Talk under the Sponsorship of the Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies at the Boston Harbor Hotel, April 24, 1995.
PREFACE When I read transcripts of my psychology talks given about fifteen years ago, I realized that I could now create a more logical but much longer "talk," including most of what I had earlier said. But I immediately saw four big disadvantages. First, the longer "talk," because it was written out with more logical completeness, would be more boring and confusing to many people than any earlier talk. This would happen because I would use idiosyncratic definitions of psychological tendencies in a manner reminiscent of both psychology textbooks and Euclid. And who reads textbooks for fun or
revisits Euclid? Second, because my formal psychological knowledge came only from skimming three psychology textbooks about fifteen years ago, I know virtually nothing about any academic psychology later developed. Yet, in a longer talk containing guesses, I would be criticizing much academic psychology. This sort of intrusion into a professional territory by an amateur would be sure to be resented by professors who would rejoice in finding my errors and might be prompted to respond to my published
Selections from three of Charlie Munger's talks, combined into one talk never made, after revisions by Charlie in 2005 that included considerable new material. The three talks were: (1) The Bray Lecture at the Caltech Faculty Club, February 2, 1992; (2) Talk under the Sponsorship of the Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies at the Harvard Faculty Club, October 6, 1994; and the extensive revision by Charlie in 2005, made from memory unassisted by any research, occurred because Charlie thought he could do better at age eighty-one than he did more than ten years earlier when he (1) knew less and was more harried by a crowded life and (2) was speaking from rough notes instead of revising transcripts. (3) Talk under the Sponsorship of the Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies at the Boston Harbor Hotel, April 24, 1995.
PREFACE When I read transcripts of my psychology talks given about fifteen years ago, I realized that I could now create a more logical but much longer "talk," including most of what I had earlier said. But I immediately saw four big disadvantages. First, the longer "talk," because it was written out with more logical completeness, would be more boring and confusing to many people than any earlier talk. This would happen because I would use idiosyncratic definitions of psychological tendencies in a manner reminiscent of both psychology textbooks and Euclid. And who reads textbooks for fun or
revisits Euclid? Second, because my formal psychological knowledge came only from skimming three psychology textbooks about fifteen years ago, I know virtually nothing about any academic psychology later developed. Yet, in a longer talk containing guesses, I would be criticizing much academic psychology. This sort of intrusion into a professional territory by an amateur would be sure to be resented by professors who would rejoice in finding my errors and might be prompted to respond to my published