Jonathan Baron (born 1944) is an American psychologist. He is a professor emeritus of

psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feel ...

at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...

in the science of

decision-making In psychology, decision-making (also spelled decision making and decisionmaking) is regarded as the Cognition, cognitive process resulting in the selection of a belief or a course of action among several possible alternative options. It could be ...

Early life and education

Baron was born in

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...

, in 1944, and received a B.A. in psychology from

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

in 1966 and a Ph.D. from the

University of Michigan The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...

in 1970 for his thesis titled ''The threshold for successiveness''.

Career

Baron is the founding editor of the

open-access journal Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which nominally copyrightable publications are delivered to readers free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 de ...

''Judgment and Decision Making'' and has been on the editorial boards of several other journals. He is a fellow of the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is a United States–based international nonprofit with the stated mission of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsib ...

and of the

Association for Psychological Science The Association for Psychological Science (APS), previously the American Psychological Society, is an international non-profit organization whose mission is to promote, protect, and advance the interests of scientifically oriented psychology in r ...

, and was the president of the

Society for Judgment and Decision Making The Society for Judgment and Decision Making is an interdisciplinary academic organization dedicated to the study of normative, descriptive, and prescriptive theories of decision. Its members include psychologists, economists, organizational and m ...

for 2006–2007.

Notable contributions

Baron's work has occurred primarily within the field of

judgment Judgement (or judgment) is the evaluation of given circumstances to make a decision. Judgement is also the ability to make considered decisions. In an informal context, a judgement is opinion expressed as fact. In the context of a legal trial ...

and

decision making In psychology, decision-making (also spelled decision making and decisionmaking) is regarded as the cognitive process resulting in the selection of a belief or a course of action among several possible alternative options. It could be either ra ...

, a multi-disciplinary area that applies

to problems in

economics Economics () is a behavioral science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interac ...

law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior, with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been variously described as a science and as the ar ...

business Business is the practice of making one's living or making money by producing or Trade, buying and selling Product (business), products (such as goods and Service (economics), services). It is also "any activity or enterprise entered into for ...

, and

public policy Public policy is an institutionalized proposal or a Group decision-making, decided set of elements like laws, regulations, guidelines, and actions to Problem solving, solve or address relevant and problematic social issues, guided by a conceptio ...

. This field began by contrasting human decision behavior with theories of individual decision-making and judgment, such as

probability theory Probability theory or probability calculus is the branch of mathematics concerned with probability. Although there are several different probability interpretations, probability theory treats the concept in a rigorous mathematical manner by expre ...

and

expected utility The expected utility hypothesis is a foundational assumption in mathematical economics concerning decision making under uncertainty. It postulates that rational agents maximize utility, meaning the subjective desirability of their actions. Ratio ...

. Baron's research has extended the focus of judgment and decision making to social problems of resource allocation and ethical decisions. Among the concepts associated with his work are

omission bias Omission bias is the phenomenon in which people prefer omission (inaction) over commission (action), and tend to judge harm as a result of commission more negatively than harm as a result of omission. It can occur due to a number of processes, incl ...

(the tendency for people to excuse acts of omission more easily than acts of commission) and

protected values In ethics and social sciences, value denotes the degree of importance of some thing or action, with the aim of determining which actions are best to do or what way is best to live ( normative ethics), or to describe the significance of different a ...

(principles on which people are unwilling to accept trade-offs). Baron is author of ''Thinking and Deciding'', a text that takes on the task of examining psychological research directed at a comprehension of the nature of thinking as he sees it. In this text, Baron covers such topics as

risk In simple terms, risk is the possibility of something bad happening. Risk involves uncertainty about the effects/implications of an activity with respect to something that humans value (such as health, well-being, wealth, property or the environ ...

bioethics Bioethics is both a field of study and professional practice, interested in ethical issues related to health (primarily focused on the human, but also increasingly includes animal ethics), including those emerging from advances in biology, me ...

Bayes' Theorem Bayes' theorem (alternatively Bayes' law or Bayes' rule, after Thomas Bayes) gives a mathematical rule for inverting Conditional probability, conditional probabilities, allowing one to find the probability of a cause given its effect. For exampl ...

, utility measurement, decision analysis, and values. The text takes a broad-based, introductory-level view to the field of psychological decision theory. He has also authored ''Morality and Rational Choice'', ''Against Bioethics'', and ''Judgment Misguided''. Additionally, he is the editor of ''Teaching Decision Making to Adolescents'' and ''Psychological Perspectives on Justice'' (with

Barbara Mellers Barbara Ann Mellers is the I. George Heyman University Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research focuses on decision processes. In 2017, Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government awarded Mellers the Th ...

). Baron's Ph.D. students have included Rebecca Treiman, Hal Pashler and

Jonathan Haidt Jonathan David Haidt (; born October 19, 1963) is an American social psychologist and author. He is the Thomas Cooley Professor of Ethical Leadership at the New York University Stern School of Business. Haidt's main areas of study are the psyc ...

References

External links

Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Baron, Jonathan 1944 births Harvard College alumni Living people University of Michigan alumni University of Pennsylvania faculty 20th-century American psychologists 21st-century American psychologists