Geir Kirkebøen

Kirkebøen, Geir (2019). ”The median isn’t the message”: How to communicate the uncertainties of survival prognoses to cancer patients in a realistic and hopeful way. European Journal of Cancer Care.

Kirkebøen, Geir (2019). Descartes on Emotions, Reason, and the Adaptive Unconscious: The Pioneer Behind the Caricature. History of Psychology, 22, 17-39.  ISSN 1093-4510.

Kirkebøen, G. & Nordbye, G.H.H. (2017). Intuitive Choices Lead to Intensified Positive Emotions: An Overlooked Reason for “Intuition Bias”?. Frontiers in Psychology.  ISSN 1664-1078.   doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01942

Kirkebøen, G. (2014) Skyhøy lønn gir dårligere ledelse Aftenposten.no. About: European Social-Press-Germany

Kirkebøen, G., Vasaasen, E. & Teigen, K. H. (2013) Revisions and regret: The cost of changing your mind. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 26, 1-12

Kirkebøen, G. (2012). Hva er intuisjon. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget.

Kirkebøen, G. & Teigen, K. (2011) Pre-outcome Regret: Widespread and Overlooked. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 24, 267-292

Brun, W., Keren, G., Kirkebøen, G. & Montgomery. H. (eds.), (2011) Perspectives on Thinking, Judging, and Decision Making. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget.

Kirkebøen, G. (2009) Decision Behaviour – Improving Expert Judgement. In T.W.Williams, K. Samset & K.J. Sunnevåg, eds., Making Essential Choices with Scant Information. Front-End Decision Making in Major Projects. New York: Palgrave-Macmillan, pp. 169-194

Kirkebøen, G. (2001) Descartes' embodied psychology: Descartes' or Damasio's error? Journal of the History of the Neurosciences, 10, 173-191

Kirkebøen, G. (2000) Descartes' Regulae, mathematics and modern psychology. History of Psychology, 3, 299-325

Kirkebøen G. (1998) Descartes' psychology of vision and Cognitive Science. Philosophical Psychology, 11, 161-82

Kirkebøen G. (1995) From a Naked Emperor to Just Clothes: The Rise and Fall of Cybernetic Family Therapy. Social Science Information, 34, 31- 65

• Kirkebøen, Geir (2019). Descartes on Emotions, Reason, and the Adaptive Unconscious: The Pioneer Behind the Caricature. History of Psychology.  ISSN 1093-4510.  22(1), s 17- 39 . doi: 10.1037/hop0000109 Show summary

  The 17th-century philosopher René Descartes’s radical new understanding of psychological phenomena is usually presented very inaccurately in psychological literature. Two extreme examples are Damasio’s (1994) Descartes’ Error and Wilson’s (2002) Strangers to Ourselves. These two much-cited books contrast the “great” philosopher’s naive mistakes with recent research on, respectively, the relation among emotions, reason, and the brain (Damasio) and the adaptive functions of unconscious processes (Wilson). Both authors do that without referring to either Descartes’s voluminous works on physiology and psychology or the extensive historical research on his works. This article shows that these distinguished scholars’ influential books are historically very misleading. Contrary to what they claim, most of Descartes’s many explanations of psychological phenomena are embodied. He was in particular engaged in understanding the relation among emotions, reason, and the brain. According to the models of understanding Descartes put forward in the 1640s, the author argues that Descartes’s Vision would have been an appropriate title for Damasio’s book. Wilson contrasts throughout his book new insights from recent research on the adaptive unconscious with the familiar caricature of Descartes’s views in the psychological literature. The author shows that Descartes, in fact, to a large extent anticipated Wilson’s argumentation for the necessity of the adaptive unconscious. He concludes that Descartes should be considered the pioneer behind many of the models of understanding presented in Wilson’s book. The author substantiates his conclusions by explicitly contrasting the argumentation and views in Descartes’s own writings with Damasio’s and Wilson’s many incorrect claims.

• Kirkebøen, Geir (2019). “The median isn't the message”: How to communicate the uncertainties of survival prognoses to cancer patients in a realistic and hopeful way. European Journal of Cancer Care.  ISSN 0961-5423. . doi: 10.1111/ecc.13056 Full text in Research Archive.
• Kirkebøen, Geir & Nordbye, Gro Hege Haraldsen (2017). Intuitive Choices Lead to Intensified Positive Emotions: An Overlooked Reason for “Intuition Bias”?. Frontiers in Psychology.  ISSN 1664-1078.  8, s 1- 11 . doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01942 Full text in Research Archive.
• Kirkebøen, Geir (2013). Kan vi stole på fagfolks skjønn?, I: Anders Molander & Jens Christian Smeby (red.),  Profesjonsstudier 2.  Universitetsforlaget.  ISBN 978-82-15-01931-4.  Kapittel 2.  s 27 - 43
• Kirkebøen, Geir; Vasaasen, Erik & Teigen, Karl Halvor (2013). Revisions and Regret: The Cost of Changing your Mind. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making.  ISSN 0894-3257.  26(1), s 1- 12 . doi: 10.1002/bdm.756 Show summary

  Decision reversals often imply improved decisions. Yet, people show a strong resistance against changing their minds. These are well established findings, which suggest that changed decisions carry a subjective cost, perhaps by being more strongly regretted. Three studies were conducted to explore participants’ regret when making reversible decisions, and to test the hypothesis that changing one’s mind will increase post-outcome regret. The first two studies employed the Ultimatum game and the Trust game. The third study used a variant of the Monty Hall problem. All games were conducted by individual participants playing interactively against a computer. The outcomes were designed to capture a common characteristic of real life decisions: they varied from rather negative to fairly positive, and for every outcome it was possible to imagine both more and less profitable outcomes. In all experiments, those who changed their minds reported much stronger post-outcome regret than those who did not change, even if the final outcomes were equally good (Experiments 2 and 3) or better (Experiment 1).This finding was not due to individual differences with respect to gender, tendency to regret, or tendency to maximize. Previous studies have found that those who change from a correct to wrong option regret more than those who select a wrong option directly. This study indicates that this finding is a special case of a more general phenomenon: Changing one’s mind seems to come with a cost, even when one ends up with favourable outcomes.

• Kirkebøen, Geir (2011). On the Discovery of the Adaptive Unconscious: Descartes behind Wilson's Caricature, In Wibecke Brun; Gideon Keren; Geir Kirkebøen & Henry Montgomery (ed.),  Perspectives on Thinking, Judging, and Decision Making.  Universitetsforlaget.  ISBN 9788215018782.  Chapter 21.  s 249 - 261
• Kirkebøen, Geir & Teigen, Karl Halvor (2011). Pre-outcome Regret: Widespread and Overlooked. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making.  ISSN 0894-3257.  24, s 267- 292 . doi: 10.1002/bdm.694
• Kirkebøen, Geir (2009). Decision Behaviour - Improving Expert Judgement, In Knut Fredrik Samset; Kjell J. Sunnevåg & Terry Williams (ed.),  Making Essential Choices with Scant Information: Front-end Decision Making in Major Projects.  Palgrave Macmillan.  ISBN 9780230205864.  Chapter 9.  s 169 - 194
• Kirkebøen, Geir (2007). Skjevheter i fagfolks skjønn: Hvordan kan beslutningstaking forbedres?, I: Kjell J. Sunnevåg (red.),  Beslutninger på svakt informasjonsgrunnlag. Tilnærminger og utfordringer i prosjekters tidlige fase. Concept rapport nr. 17.  Concept-programmet. NTNU.  ISBN 978-82-92506-50-9.  Kapittel 9.  s 175 - 201
• Kirkebøen, Geir (2001). Descartes' embodied psychology: Descartes' or Damasio's error?. Journal of the History of the Neurosciences.  ISSN 0964-704X.  10, s 173- 191 Show summary

  Damasio (1994) claims that Descartes imagined thinking as an activity separate from the body, and that the effort to understand the mind in general biological terms was retarded as a consequence of Descartes' dualism. These claims do not hold; they are "Damasio's error". Descartes never considered what we today call thinking or cognition without taking the body into account. His new dualism required an embodied understanding of cognition. The article gives an historical overview of the development of Descartes' radically new psychology from his account of algebraic reasoning in the early Regulae (1628) to his "neurobiology of rationality" in the late Passions of the soul (1649). The author argues that Descartes' dualism opens the way for mechanistic and mathematical explanations of all kinds of physiological and psychological phenomena, including the kind of phenomena Damasio discusses in Descartes' error. The models of understanding Damasio puts forward can be seen as advanced version of models which Descartes introduced in the 1640s. A far better title for his book would have been Descartes' vision.

• Kirkebøen, Geir (2001). Sources of Damasio's Error - A Reply to Damasio. Journal of the History of the Neurosciences.  ISSN 0964-704X.  10, s 195- 196
• Kirkebøen, Geir (2000). Descartes' Regulae, mathematics and modern psychology. History of Psychology.  ISSN 1093-4510.  3, s 299- 325 Show summary

  There are surprisingly strong connections between the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of mathematics. One particular important example can be seen in the Regulae (1628) of Descartes. In "the noblest example of all", he uses his new abstract understanding of numbers to demonstrate how the brain can be considered as a symbol machine and how the intellect's algebraic reasoning can be mirrored as operations on this machine. Even though this attempt "failed", it is illuminating to explore it, because Descartes launched two traditions - mechanistic philosophy of mind and abstract mathematics - that would diverge until Turing (1936) approaches symbolic reasoning in a similar "symbol machine - existence proof" way. Descartes' and Turing's thought experiments, which mark the beginning of modern psychology and cognitive science respectively, indicate how important the development of mathematics has been for the constitution of the science of mind.

• Kirkebøen, Geir (1999). Skjønn, formler og klinisk praksis: Hvorfor vurderer erfarne klinikere så dårlig enda de vet så mye?. Tidsskrift for Norsk Psykologforening.  ISSN 0332-6470.  36, s 523- 536 Show summary

  How are the judgments made by professionals compared with those made by novices and those based on formulas? Dreyfus and Dreyfus (1986) claim that experts, as opposed to expert systems, "intuitively see" what to do, and that such holistic understanding is a result of "a great deal of involved experience." Their popular "mind over machine"-view is a myth. Although "artificially intelligent" expert systems have not successfully replaced experts, simple formulas consistently outperform experts on judgment tasks. Experienced professionals know more than inexperienced, but they do not judge better. These apparent paradoxes are well supported by psychological research, especially in areas like clinical psychology. The article explains central findings in the judgment and decision making literature and discusses implications for clinical practice.

• Kirkebøen, Geir (1998). Descartes bak ex.phil.-karikaturen. Agora : Journal for metafysisk spekulasjon.  ISSN 0800-7136.  16, s 108- 160
• Kirkebøen, Geir (1998). Descartes' psychology of vision and cognitive science. Philosophical Psychology.  ISSN 0951-5089.  11, s 161- 182 Show summary

  In this paper I consider the relation between Descartes's psychology of vision and the cognitive science approach to psychology (henceforth CS). In particular, I examine Descartes's (1637) Optics in the light of David Marr's (1982) position in CS. My general claim is that CS can be seen as a re-discovery of Descartes's psychology of vision. In the first section, I point up a parallel between Descartes's epistemological revolution, which created the modern version of the problem of perception, and the cognitive revolution. These fundamental revolutions in theoretical psychology were both inspired and legitimated by a revolution in mathematics. They took place in accordance with one of Marr's (1982) maxims: "To the Desirable via the Possible." In the second section, I demonstrate that in the Optics Descartes explains perception of metrical properties in a way that - on a detailed level - is in accordance with how Marr (1982) argues that complex information processing systems have to be explained: both Descartes and Marr emphasise the co-ordination of logical and physical analysis. In section three, I claim that Descartes's arguments for a sharp distinction between mechanical transmission of sense-data (sensation) and non-mechanical inferences on those sense-data (thinking) are sound arguments seen from Marr's position in CS. Descartes's arguments are based on his logical and physical analysis. Malebranche's radicalized version of Cartesian dualism turns Descartes's empirically based assumption that mechanisms cannot realise inferences into a metaphysical assumption. In the final section, I argue that this metaphysical assumption contributes to an understanding of perception as a non-symbolic, non-inferential bottom-up process in mainstream monistic and mechanistic scientific psychology until the cognitive revolution.

• Kirkebøen, Geir (1995). From a naked emperor to just clothes: The rise and fall of cybernetic family therapy. Social Science Information.  ISSN 0539-0184.  34, s 31- 64 Show summary

  Over the past few years, the theoretical focus of the so-called Palo-Alto tradition, a dominant tradition in academic family therapy initiated by Gregory Bateson et al. (1956), has changed from a cybernetic perspective to radical social-constructivism. Motivated by this dramatic change, the tradition is examined from different meta-scientific perspectives. It is shown that, historically, the theoretical progress in family therapy is closely linked with information processing psychology, and strongly influenced by popular metaphors taken from information technology. From a theoretical point of view, it is concluded that cybernetic explanations of families do not meet the requirement of explanatory relevance. Several negative consequences will be shown to follow from the use of highly technical and abstract models and methaphors in family therapy theory. The paper further discusses why therapists to this extent use such metaphors and have been "seduced" by a biologist like H. Maturana. It is argued that a "sober" social-constructivist perspective should make use of models for understanding based primarily on everyday language.

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• Kirkebøen, Geir (2012). Hva er intuisjon. Universitetsforlaget.  ISBN 978-82-15-01809-6.  157 s.
• Brun, Wibecke; Keren, Gideon; Kirkebøen, Geir & Montgomery, Henry (ed.) (2011). Perspectives on Thinking, Judging, and Decision Making. Universitetsforlaget.  ISBN 9788215018782.  293 s.

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• Kirkebøen, Geir (2019). Hvordan formidle usikre overlevelsesprognoser til kreftpasienter på en realistisk og håpefull måte?. Onkonytt.  ISSN 1503-7886.  17(1), s 37- 45
• Kirkebøen, Geir (2018, 10. februar). VM Fischer Random Chess. NRK1. [TV].  Høvikodden, Bærum. Show summary

  https://www.nrk.no/sport/sjakk-1.11839763 (Min deltagelse fra 03.26.00)

• Kirkebøen, Geir (2016). Communication of Expected Survival Time to Cancer Patients: How It Is Done and How It Should Be Done.
• Kirkebøen, Geir (2016). Grunner til at klinisk skjønn ofte ikke blir bedre med erfaring.
• Kirkebøen, Geir (2016). “The Median isn’t the Message” (1985) – 30 år senere: Hvordan formidles forventet levetid til kreftpasienter og hvordan bør den formidles?.
• Kirkebøen, Geir (2016). “The Median isn’t the Message” (1985) – 30 år senere: Hvordan formidles forventet levetid til kreftpasienter og hvordan bør den formidles?.
• Kirkebøen, Geir (2016). “The Median isn’t the Message” (1985) – 30 år senere: Hvordan formidles forventet levetid til kreftpasienter og hvordan bør den formidles?.
• Kirkebøen, Geir (2016, 08. februar). Typisk deg. [TV].  TVNORGE; Sesong 3, Program 1: Penger.
• Kirkebøen, Geir (2015, 07. november). Innsidehandel.  Dagbladet Magasinet.
• Kirkebøen, Geir (2015). “The Median Isn’t the Message” (1982) – thirty years later: How to communicate expected survival time to patients?.
• Kirkebøen, Geir (2014, 01. august). - Det handler om å stole på seg selv. [Fagblad].  Tara.
• Kirkebøen, Geir (2014, 20. august). Hva er intuisjon, og kan det læres?. [Radio].  Ekko, P2.
• Kirkebøen, Geir (2014, 01. august). Hør! Hør!. [Fagblad].  Bedre Helse.
• Kirkebøen, Geir (2014). Intuisjon, skjønn og etterforskning.
• Kirkebøen, Geir (2014). Intuisjon,skjønn og personellseleksjon.
• Kirkebøen, Geir (2014). Når er fagfolks intuisjoner til å stole på?. Scandinavian Psychologist.  ISSN 1894-5570.
• Kirkebøen, Geir (2014). Skjønn, intuisjon og beslutningstaking: Når kan en utreder stole på magefølelsen?.
• Kirkebøen, Geir (2014). Skyhøy lønn gir dårligere ledelse. Aftenposten (morgenutg. : trykt utg.).  ISSN 0804-3116.
• Kirkebøen, Geir (2014). Skyhøy lønn gir dårligere ledelse. Scandinavian Psychologist.  ISSN 1894-5570.
• Astrup, Emilie Smith & Kirkebøen, Geir (2013). Tenk deg om!. Speilvendt.  ISSN 1893-4560.  (3), s 32- 34
• Kirkebøen, Geir (2013). Forskning på fagfolks skjønn og intuisjon: Implikasjoner for praksis.
• Kirkebøen, Geir (2013). Forskning på fagfolks skjønn og intuisjon: Relevant for etterforskere?.
• Kirkebøen, Geir (2013). Hva er intuisjon.
• Kirkebøen, Geir (2013). Intuisjon: Når kan fagfolk stole på følelsen av å ha rett?.
• Kirkebøen, Geir (2013, 15. mai). Om intuisjon. [Radio].  EKKO NRK P2.
• Kirkebøen, Geir & Nordbye, Gro Hege Haraldsen (2013). Intuitive choices intensify emotional experiences: An overlooked reason for the “intuition bias”?.
• Kirkebøen, Geir (2012). "Et spørsmål om skjønn" Bokanmeldelse av Daniel Kahnemans (2011) "Thinking, Fast and Slow". New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux. Klassekampen.  ISSN 0805-3839.
• Nordbye, Gro Hege Haraldsen; Kirkebøen, Geir & Teigen, Karl Halvor (2012). Intuition and responsibility:Intuitive actors look less, but feel more, responsible.
• Nordbye, Gro Hege Haraldsen; Kirkebøen, Geir & Teigen, Karl Halvor (2012). Who is more responsible, the intuitive or the analytical decision maker?. Show summary

  People have tendency to prefer intuitively appealing rather than equally valid non-intuitive alternatives. One explanation is that intuitions spring to mind with ease, and people therefore hold them with confidence. We hypothesized that emotional consequences also may contribute to people’s tendency to go with their gut. In one scenario and one retrospective study, we found that emotional experiences of both positive and negative outcomes were intensified after choosing the intuitive versus the non-intuitive alternative. Our data indicate that these intensified emotions strengthen people’s experience of themselves as independent actors, and thereby, we speculate, may reinforce people’s tendency to follow their intuitions.

• Keren, Gideon; Brun, Wibecke; Kirkebøen, Geir & Montgomery, Henry (2011). Introduction, In Wibecke Brun; Gideon Keren; Geir Kirkebøen & Henry Montgomery (ed.),  Perspectives on Thinking, Judging, and Decision Making.  Universitetsforlaget.  ISBN 9788215018782.  Introduction.  s 11 - 20
• Kirkebøen, Geir; Nordbye, Gro Hege Haraldsen & Teigen, Karl Halvor (2011). Intuitive choices intensify emotional experiences:A reason for people’s tendency to go with their gut.
• Kirkebøen, Geir (2010). Intuisjon: Når kan du stole på følelsen av å ha rett?.
• Kirkebøen, Geir (2010). Psykologisk forskning på profesjonelt skjønn.
• Kirkebøen, Geir; Vasaasen, Erik & Teigen, Karl Halvor (2009). Revisions and regret: Reversed decisions increase regret.
• Kirkebøen, Geir; Vasaasen, Erik & Teigen, Karl Halvor (2009). The cost of changing your mind: Reversed decisions increase regret.
• Teigen, Karl Halvor & Kirkebøen, Geir (2009). Regret between decisions and outcomes.
• Kirkebøen, Geir (2008). Intervjuillusjonen. Troen på jobbintervjuet som seleksjonsmetode.
• Kirkebøen, Geir (2008). Sats på kloke grupper. A-magasinet : uketillegg til Aftenposten.  ISSN 0807-5654.  (46), s 70- 70
• Kirkebøen, Geir & Teigen, Karl Halvor (2008). Pre-outcome regret: On regret between decisions and outcomes.
• Teigen, Karl Halvor & Kirkebøen, Geir (2008). Cold feet: Regret between decisions and outcomes.
• Kirkebøen, Geir (2007). Ansette henne?. A-magasinet : uketillegg til Aftenposten.  ISSN 0807-5654.  (18), s 58- 59
• Kirkebøen, Geir (2007). Følelsenes visdom. A-magasinet : uketillegg til Aftenposten.  ISSN 0807-5654.  (48), s 62- 63
• Kirkebøen, Geir (2007). Glorieeffekten. A-magasinet : uketillegg til Aftenposten.  ISSN 0807-5654.  (24), s 62- 63
• Kirkebøen, Geir (2007). Kunnskap gjør blind. A-magasinet : uketillegg til Aftenposten.  ISSN 0807-5654.  (36), s 58- 59
• Sirnes, Svein M. & Kirkebøen, Geir (2007). Psykologiprofessor kritisk til bruk av jobbintervjuer. Lektorbladet.  ISSN 1503-027X.  6(4), s 10- 11
• Kirkebøen, Geir (2006). Godt skjønn - en myte. A-magasinet : uketillegg til Aftenposten.  ISSN 0807-5654.  (16), s 60- 61
• Kirkebøen, Geir (2006). Sov på det. A-magasinet : uketillegg til Aftenposten.  ISSN 0807-5654.  (36), s 60- 61
• Kirkebøen, Geir (2006). Talent er bare starten. A-magasinet : uketillegg til Aftenposten.  ISSN 0807-5654.  (4), s 58- 59
• Kirkebøen, Geir (2006). Valgets pris. A-magasinet : uketillegg til Aftenposten.  ISSN 0807-5654.  (21), s 60- 61
• Kirkebøen, Geir (2005). Tar det på følelsen. A-magasinet : uketillegg til Aftenposten.  ISSN 0807-5654.  s 60- 61
• Kirkebøen, Geir (2005). Ubeskrivelig lykkelig. A-magasinet : uketillegg til Aftenposten.  ISSN 0807-5654.
• Kirkebøen, Geir (2003). Beslutningspsykologi.
• Kirkebøen, Geir (2003). Profesjonelt skjønn versus formler.
• Kirkebøen, Geir (2001, 19. mars). Mennesket og maskinen. [Radio].  Verdt å vite. NRK Radio.
• Kirkebøen, Geir (2001). Myten om det gode profesjonelle skjønn. Ekspertvurderinger kontra lineære beslutningsregler.
• Jørgensen, Magne; Kirkebøen, Geir; Sjøberg, Dag; Anda, Bente Cecilie D & Bratthall, Lars (2000). Human judgement in effort estimation of software projects.
• Jørgensen, Magne; Sjøberg, Dag & Kirkebøen, Geir (2000). The prediction ability of experienced software maintainers.
• Kirkebøen, Geir; Reinvang, Ivar; Humlekjær, Linn Iren & Kvello, Iver Odin (2000). NPKADS: A web application for neuropsychological knowledge analysis, decision support and problem-based learning. Show summary

  Simple formulas outperform clinicians on judgment tasks (Dawes, Faust, and Meehl, 1989). 'Raw' experience does not improve the accuracy of clinicians judgments (Brehmer, 1980). Clinicians have poor insight into their own judgmental processes and difficulties in communicating their judgment competence to others. Such findings in the judgment- and decision making literature motivate the design of NPKADS, which is a web application for neuropsychological knowledge analysis, decision support and problem based learning. As a decision support system, NPKADS takes neuropsychological data as input and in its first stage outputs a functional mapping. Additional information on educational level and clinical observations allow further inference about likelihood of encephalopathy and assignment of a 'certainty factor' to a limited set of diagnostic alternatives. A database containing (confirmed) judgments is attached to the system. NPKADS is an efficient tool for clarifying neuropsychological competence. The system is fully transparent, i.e., a user can trace every conclusion made by the system back to the explicitly defined knowledge model which underlies the system's reasoning. It is a preliminary weakness of the system that the knowledge in the model, which is mainly weighted relations between input and output values, is partly based on a clinician's intuition. However, the transparency of the system makes it possible to critically examine these weights and gradually replace them with empirically established ones. The system's transparency also makes it a valuable adjunct in problem based training of students and residents.

• Kirkebøen, Geir (1999). Intuisjon, læring, formidling - behovet for IKT: Design av et interaktivt www-system for nevropsykologer.
• Kirkebøen, Geir (1997). Descartes's (1628) Regulae and cognitive science: The 'noblest example of all' in the light of Turing's (1936) On computeable numbers.

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