Worth Books - Summary and Analysis of Thinking, Fast and Slow: Based on the Book by Daniel Kahneman

Summary and Analysis of

Thinking, Fast and Slow

Based on the Book by Daniel Kahneman

Contents

Context

Originally published in 2011, Thinking, Fast and Slow encapsulates approximately thirty years of psychologist Daniel Kahnemans work in behavioral economics and social and cognitive psychology. In the early 1970s, Kahneman and his research partner, Amos Tversky, began working to expose cognitive biases inherent to the human mind, particularly in the context of economic choices.

In 2002, Kahneman won the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for the work that became this book (Tversky died in 1996), which is especially notable because Kahneman is not an economist. Thinking, Fast and Slow is, in part, a long-form explanation of his Nobel Prizewinning work, geared toward laypeople and experts alike. The book also includes the authors work on judgment heuristics, which expands upon concepts discussed in Kahneman and Tverskys groundbreaking Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases, originally published in the journal Science in 1974.

With awareness of the two kinds of thinking we dofast and slowreaders will learn how to better understand their own decision making and the choices made by others.

Overview

In this book, readers learn how both the automatic and the more rational thought processes of the brain work. We see that our natural human reason actually causes us to engage in various fallacies and systematic errors. Therefore, in order to make better decisions and formulate superior solutions to problemsas individuals, as businesses, and as societieswe must be able to identify and understand these biases, and learn to deal with them.

Summary

Part 1: Two Systems

System 1 of your brain operates speedily and automatically, while System 2 is slow and requires a great deal of mental energy to process complex mental activities. System 1 and System 2 work together.

Here are some examples of automatic activities attributed to System 1:

• Detect if one object is more distant than another
• Complete simple math equations, like 1 + 1 = ?
• Smile when shown an image of puppies
• Complete the phrase, salt and
• Orient to the source of a sound
• Swat a mosquito
• Drive on an empty road
• Recognize stereotypes

All of these mental calculations occur automatically and require very little or no effort. System 1 also includes innate skills, or those we share with other animals, such as being prepared to perceive the world, avoiding losses, recognizing objects, and fearing spiders. Many more we acquire through practice and learned associations and abilities, such as knowing the capital of New York, reading, and interpreting social situations. Additionally, many of the mental actions attributed to System 1 are involuntary. Your mind cannot help but solve 1 + 1.

Here are some examples of the mental events attributed to System 2:

• Focus on the voice of one person in a noisy room
• Look for a woman with red hair in a crowd
• Focus your attention on only the elephants in a circus
• Maintain a faster walking speed than is comfortable for you
• Fill out a tax form
• Search your memory for a surprising sound
• Brace for a punch
• Monitor how you act in a social situation

Unlike the mental events attributed to System 1, System 2 events require you to pay attention. Paying attention requires you to spend mental energy. Usually, you can only process one System 2 mental event at a time. For example, it is impossible for most people to make a left turn in heavy traffic while calculating 19 x 168. Focusing intently on something effectively makes you blind, even to stimuli that normally attract attention.

System 1:

System 1 responses are immediate, which means they can easily be erroneous and are often based on inadequate information; they are essential to human survival, however, because they make instant judgments in potentially dangerous situations. For example, System 1 tells you to move from the path of an oncoming cyclist, swat a mosquito, or duck to avoid a projectile.

System 1s main job is to assess normality, the evolutionary function that helps us survivelife is more manageable when there are patterns to follow. It seeks out causes and intentions, and can attribute effects to them even when there is no actual causality. The halo effect, for instance, occurs when the brain uses a small amount of information to form broad, sweeping conclusions about someone or something without considering what information might be missing.

This system pulls from the many ideas we unconsciously group together at any given time to instantly make sense of situations and stimuli around us. Priming effects are an expression of this. When your brain has been primed by exposure to an idea, theme, or even by your own physiological needs, you more readily pull related associations from your existing networks. Primes guide our behaviors, making us more or less likely to act in certain ways. For example, research shows that voters from both ends of the political spectrum are more likely to vote to increase school budgets when their polling place is inside a school. This is a priming effect.

System 2:

System 2 involves exerting a high level of effort, which causes the brain to not see other stimuli, even when those stimuli would normally be remarkable. In fact, tasks handled by this second system result in physical changes to our bodies: pupil dilation and increased heart ratethe two signs Kahneman used to research how and when people switched back and forth between the mental processes.

This system operates at a slower speed. Pushing it to work much faster takes considerable effort and depletes the brains resources quickly. The mind is cognitively busy when it is intensely focused on tasks that demand System 2s energies, such as calculating numbers. But being cognitively busy also renders one more likely to make superficial judgments and impulsive decisions. This is because System 2, the home of good judgment, is occupied, so System 1 is forced to take over.

Real cognitive aptitude is the heart of System 2, and its what gives us the ability to think and consider our options before acting, to employ self-control, and to come to rational decisions.

Clashes Between System 1 and System 2:

System 1 monitors what is going on around us by constantly engaging in basic assessments; it believes and confirms what it sees, while System 2 doubts and challenges. System 1 is unable to focus only on the task assigned to it by System 2; inevitably, it performs other basic assessments as well.

When an intuitive answer to a question isnt readily available, System 1 generates an easier question, substitutes it, and answers it. Kahneman defines this as a heuristic: a simple process to find answers to hard questions, even though those answers may not be perfect. Issues arise when the heuristics generated are inadequate substitutes. The mood heuristic is the way the mind substitutes an assessment of a current mood for the more complicated question of general happiness or other emotional assessment. The affect heuristic refers to the way we tend to allow our likes and dislikes to control our beliefs about the world.

Cognitive ease is the feeling you have when things are generally going well and there is no need for System 2 to intervene. Cognitive strain is the feeling that there are unmet needs that require work from System 2. Mere familiarity can be enough to trick the brain into thinking something is true. Things that are easier to read and understand feel truer to us. Things that are tougher to read and understand induce cognitive strain and therefore engage System 2.