Robyn Dawes

Robyn Mason Dawes is an American psychologist specializing in the field of human judgment. His research interests have included human irrationality, human cooperation, and intuitive expertise. He was also a pioneer in the field of mathematical psychology. In 1985, Dawes joined the Department of Social and Decision Sciences (SDS) at Carnegie Mellon University where he served as Department Head for five years and is now the Charles J. Queenan, Jr. University Professor of Psychology. He is a fellow in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences a member of the National Research Council's Committee on AIDS Research.

Dawes earned his B.A. in Philosophy at Harvard (1958) and his Master’s in Clinical Psychology (1960) at the University of Michigan before earning his Doctorate in Mathematical Psychology (1963) at the same institution. He has held jobs at the University of Oregon, where he served as Department Head for five years, as well as the Oregon Research Institute, from which he was fired for insubordination in 1974. In 1990, he was awarded the William James Award by the American Psychological Association for the book Rational Choice in an Uncertain World (now it its 3rd Edition), which he co-wrote with Reid Hastie.

Other books written by Dawes include:

Everyday Irrationality: How Pseudoscientists, Lunatics, and the Rest of Us Fail to Think Rationally. Westview Press (2003).

House of Cards: Psychology and Psychotherapy Built on Myth. Free Press (1996).

The Fundamentals of Attitude Measurement. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (1974).

Mathematical Psychology: An Elementary Introduction (with Clyde Coombs and Amos Tversky). Prentice Hall (1970).