Ward Edwards (1927–2005) was an American psychologist, prominent for work on

decision theory Decision theory (or the theory of choice; not to be confused with choice theory) is a branch of applied probability theory concerned with the theory of making decisions based on assigning probabilities to various factors and assigning numerical ...

and on the formulation and revision of beliefs.

Education

Edwards attended Swarthmore College and then received his Ph.D. in Psychology from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...

Awards

* Frank P. Ramsey Award from the Decision Analysis Society, 1988 * Distinguished Scientific Contributions Award in Applied Psychology,

American Psychological Association The American Psychological Association (APA) is the largest scientific and professional organization of psychologists in the United States, with over 133,000 members, including scientists, educators, clinicians, consultants, and students. It ha ...

1996 * 2004 class of

Fellow A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

s of the

Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences The Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) is an international society for practitioners in the fields of operations research (O.R.), management science, and analytics. It was established in 1995 with the merger o ...

"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 ...

named Ward Edwards as a James McKeen Cattell Fellow in recognition of his sustained and seminal contributions to the technology of decision making and to behavioral decision theory"
James McKeen Cattell Fellow Award, 1995

Research

Edwards published more than one hundred journal articles and books including ''Decision Analysis and Behavioral Research'' and ''Utility Theories: Measurement and Applications''. In the introduction to a Festschrift for Edwards, Barbara Mellers state

:''Decision Science and Technology'' is a compilation of chapters written in honor of a remarkable man, Ward Edwards. Among Ward's many contributions are two significant accomplishments, either of which would have been enough for a very distinguished career. First, Ward is the founder of behavioral decision theory. This interdisciplinary discipline addresses the question of how people actually confront decisions, as opposed to the question of how they should make decisions. Second, Ward laid the groundwork for sound normative systems by noticing which tasks humans can do well and which tasks computers should perform. In 1962, Edwards founded the Bayesian Research Conference with the aim to incorporate and apply Bayesian statistical methods and ideas to decision theory. This conference was renamed the "Edwards Bayesian Research Conference" in his honor in 2005. In Statistics he is well known as lead author of Edwards, Lindman, and Savage (1963), Bayesian Statistical Inference for Psychological Research, ''Psychological Review'', 70(3), 193–242. This article introduced the notion of 'stable estimation', and was the first to note that a p-value of 0.05 in the Normal model corresponded to a lower bound on the Bayes Factor of 0.26.

References

External links

Biography of Ward Edwards
from the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences 1927 births 2005 deaths 20th-century American psychologists Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni Swarthmore College alumni Fellows of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences {{US-psychologist-stub