Amos Tversky: Biography Of A Cognitive Psychologist And Mathematician

Amos Tversky was born in 1937 in Haifa, a city of Israel; is known for being a cognitive psychologist and mathematician who introduced a completely new term to the field of psychology: cognitive biases. In addition, he is considered a pioneer of cognitivism, an area that deals with the study of the mental processes that are involved in knowledge.

Throughout his professional career, Amos Tversky maintained a deep friendship with Daniel Kahneman, one of the psychologists who is widely recognized for having won a Nobel Prize, of which Tversky was also a collaborator. For all this, we are going to discover more about this psychologist by delving into his biography.

Biography of Amos Tversky

As we mentioned, Amos Tversky was born in Haifa. His father was a veterinarian and his mother was a social worker who would become, over the years, a member of parliament for the workers’ party (Mapai). Tversky also had an older sister who he had been with for about 13 years.

During his adolescence, Tversky not only became interested in literary criticism, but went on to become the leader of the Nahal, a youth movement that fought against military service. Later, Amos Tversky would serve as a paratrooper for the Israel Defense Forces where he won a decoration for bravery.

After these experiences, already in 1961, Tversky managed to graduate from the University of Hebrew. A few years later, 4 to be exact, he pursues his Ph.D. at the University of Michigan and works as a professor and researcher in psychology and economics.

His latest work was carried out at Stanford University’s Center for Advanced Studies in Behavioral Sciences. He remained there until his death in 1996. Amos Tversky died of melanoma at the age of 59.

I work with Daniel Kahneman

The friendship that Amos Tversky had with Daniel Kahneman did not go unnoticed, both psychologists worked together on several occasions. The first publication they made was an article entitled “Belief in the law of small numbers” that had a great influence in the field of economics. However, the two made numerous subsequent publications, such as: “Judgment under uncertainty: heuristics and biases” or “In the psychology of prediction.”

The work they did together was so important that, 6 years after Tversky’s death, when Daniel Kahneman received his Nobel Prize, he declared: “[…] the award is awarded to me in great measure for the work I did many years ago. years with my close friend and colleague Amos Tversky, who died in 1996 ”. The full text of his speech can be found in Daniel Kahneman: 2002 Nobel Prize in Economics .

Amos Tversky Awards

Tversky’s contributions to the field of cognitive psychology were very important. For this reason, he was presented with various awards and recognitions for his research career. Among them, the fact of having been  elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences stands out.

Another of the awards he received was that of the APA (American Psychological Association), due to the distinguished scientific contribution he had made. Finally, Amos Tversky was recognized as a doctor with honors in several universities, among which are the universities of: Chicago, Tale, Gothenburg and the State of New York.

As we can see, Amos Tversky was a pioneer in cognitive psychology who made very interesting contributions together with his great friend Daniel Kahneman. In addition, Tversky launched an intelligence test that bears his name and whose important aspects are collected in the article Uncertainties of the dimensional analysis of intelligence .

All of Amos Tversky’s publications are truly interesting and can be understood by both an audience familiar with issues of psychology and a wider audience. The concept of cognitive biases and how psychology and mathematics came together was and is, without a doubt, something amazing. However, we recommend reading The Undo Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds. It was written by Michael Lewis and it is a reading that will help you deepen the friendship and all the work that Amos Tversky did with his friend Daniel Kahneman.