Robin M. Hogarth

Emre Soyer

A transformative look at experience and the many ways it misleads, deceives and curtails us. Society venerates experience. Our personal experience is a key component of who we are. We judge others by theirs and are judged by ours. From doctors to teachers to presidents to chefs, in our society, the more experience the better. But while we value and trust experience above all else, we overlook its inherent downfalls. In The Myth of Experience, Hogarth and Soyer explore why a reliance on experience can ultimately hinder individual and societal decision-making. Drawing on concepts of behavioral science and economics, they highlight how experience can misrepresent the past, limit creativity, restrict freedom and reduce happiness. In doing so, they transform the conventional wisdom behind experience and provide a guide on how to improve our use of it. When organizations and decision-makers develop a healthy criticism towards experience, effective strategies develop and growth can occur. Told in an engaging narrative with cases from history and everyday life, alongside their own cutting-edge discoveries in behavioral science, Hogarth and Soyer illustrate the flaws of experience as a decision-making tool and the instances where our most trusted ally could really be our enemy, in the workplace and beyond.

Why We Learn the Wrong Lessons, and Ways to Correct Them

The Myth of Experience

Robin M Hogarth

Experience is a great teacher-except when it isn't. Our personal experience is key to who we are and what we do. We judge others by their experience and are judged by ours. Society venerates experience. From doctors to teachers to managers to presidents, the more experience the better. It's not surprising then, that we often fall back on experience when making decisions, an easy way to make judgements about the future, a constant teacher that provides clear lessons. Yet, this intuitive reliance on experience is misplaced. In The Myth of Experience, behavioral scientists Emre Soyer and Robin Hogarth take a transformative look at experience and the many ways it deceives and misleads us. From distorting the past to limiting creativity to reducing happiness, experience can cause misperceptions and then reinforce them without our awareness. Instead, the authors argue for a nuanced approach, where a healthy skepticism toward the lessons of experience results in more reliable decisions and sustainable growth. Soyer and Hogarth illustrate the flaws of experience--with real-life examples from bloodletting to personal computers to pandemics--and distill cutting-edge research as a guide to decision-making, as well as provide the remedies needed to improve our judgments and choices in the workplace and beyond.

Emre Soyer

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