Risk Taking, Gut Feelings, and the Biology of Boom and BustJohn Coates
Audio only
Length10h 30m
About this audiobook
How risk taking transforms our body chemistry, driving us to extremes of euphoria and risky behavior—or stress and depression
In this eye-opening book, Coates—a former Wall Street trader and now a world-class neuroscientist—describes the role our biology plays in our risk-taking behavior. Coates brings his research to life by telling a story of fictional traders who get caught up in a bubble and then a crash. As these traders place their bets and live with the results, Coates looks inside their bodies to describe the physiology driving them into irrational exuberance and then pessimism. The result is a riveting tale and a penetrating insight into how traders'—and indeed all humans'—bodies guide their risk taking, endowing them with fast reactions and gut feelings; but how their biology can also lead them to extremes of euphoria or anxiety and stress, thereby wreaking havoc on the economy. Coates extends his conclusions to all types of high-pressure decision making—from the sports field to the battlefield.
John Coates is a senior research fellow in neuroscience and finance at the University of Cambridge. After completing his PhD, he worked for Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, and Deutsche Bank in New York, where he observed the powerful emotions driving traders. He returned to Cambridge in 2004 to research the effects of the endocrine system on financial risk taking. His work has been cited in several publications, including the New York Times, Wired, and the Economist, and he has appeared on Good Morning America, CBS Evening News, and the BBC. His writing has been published in the Financial Times and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, among other publications.View all by John Coates
