In a complex and uncertain world, humans and animals make decisions under the constraints of limited knowledge, resources, and time. Yet models of rational decision making in economics, cognitive science, biology, and other fields largely ignore these real constraints and instead assume agents with perfect information and unlimited time. About forty years ago, Herbert Simon challenged this view with his notion of "bounded rationality." Today, bounded rationality has become a fashionable term used for disparate views of reasoning. This book promotes bounded rationality as the key to understanding how real people make decisions. Using the concept of an "adaptive toolbox," a repertoire of fast and frugal rules for decision making under uncertainty, it attempts to impose more order and coherence on the idea of bounded rationality. The contributors view bounded rationality neither as optimization under constraints nor as the study of people's reasoning fallacies. The strategies in the adaptive toolbox dispense with optimization and, for the most part, with calculations of probabilities and utilities. The book extends the concept of bounded rationality from cognitive tools to emotions; it analyzes social norms, imitation, and other cultural tools as rational strategies; and it shows how smart heuristics can exploit the structure of environments.

新思想来源于何处?什么是社会智能?无知如何转变为悟性?为什么社会科学家们会盲目地采用无头脑的统计学仪式?这本重要著作对这些问题做出了精辟回答。它将理性作为适应性思维进行重新思考，这种思维重在理解头脑是如何应付其周围环境的，包括自然的和社会的。总之，本书收集的论文发展了这样的思想：人类思维——从科学创造到理解艾滋病病毒检测结果意味着什么——部分地“发生”于头脑外部。
在本书中，吉仁泽教授提出并详细说明了探讨理性心理学问题的一项大胆而新颖的研究方案。生态理性、有限理性、社会理性等颇具创意的概念为研究人类理性提供了一种全新的理论框架。其独到的见解和论述将关于人类思维、社会智能、创造性及决策制定等问题的研究从一个虚无缥缈的梦幻世界一一在那里逻辑和概率规则统御着一切——迎回了启发式和社会动机发挥作用的现实世界中来。
《适应性思维》一本书适合对心理学、认知科学、统计学、经济学、社会学、哲学、人工智能和动物行为等研究领域感兴趣的广大读者阅读。它也为医生、艾滋病咨询师、刑法专家等实践工作者如何理解和交流不确定性和风险信息提供了可行的方案。

Where do new ideas come from? What is social intelligence? Why do social scientists perform mindless statistical rituals? This vital book is about rethinking rationality as adaptive to understand how minds cope with their environments, both ecological and social.

Gerd Gigerenzer proposes and illustrates a bold new research program that investigates the psychology of rationality, introducing the concepts of ecological, bounded, and social rationality. His path-breaking collection takes research on thinking, social intelligence, creativity, and decision-making out of an ethereal world where the laws of logic and probability reign, and places it into our real world of human behavior and interaction. Adaptive Thinking is accessibly written for general readers with an interest in psychology, cognitive science, economics, sociology, philosophy, artificial intelligence, and animal behavior. It also teaches a practical audience, such as physicians, AIDS counselors, and experts in criminal law, how to understand and communicate uncertainties and risks.

作者在本书中考察了关于历史和历史学性质的思想的深刻变化，以及自 19世纪职业历史学出现以来作为其基础的基本原则的发展，描述了二战以后新的社会科学学科如何改变历史学，特别是近二十年来后现代主义思想对历史学的巨大挑战，并得出结论：当代的历史学正从经典的、宏观的形式走向微观史、文化史和日常生活史。本书是新版，增加了题为“21世纪初的回顾 ”的后记，考察了从后现代主义向新的社会科学方法的进展，特别注意文化因素和全球化问题。本书已被译成十种文字在多个国家出版。