Review Of The Book “Thinking Fast, Thinking Slow” By Daniel Kahneman
Think fast, think slow is a book published in 2011 by psychologist Daniel Kahneman (Tel Aviv, 1934). Currently, he is a Professor of Psychology at Princeton University.
A specialist in cognitive psychology, Kahneman’s main contribution to Economics consists of the development, together with Amos Tversky, of the so-called Prospect Theory, according to which Individuals make decisions, in environments of uncertainty, that deviate from the basic principles of probability They called these types of decisions heuristic shortcuts.
In 2002, together with Vernon Smith, He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics for having integrated aspects of psychological research into economic science, especially with regard to human judgment and decision making under uncertainty.
We recently included Daniel Kahneman in our ranking of the 12 most influential psychologists today. Being the only psychologist who has managed to win a Nobel Prize, his inclusion is more than deserved.
Think fast, think slow: a compilation of his main ideas
In the book Think fast, think slowKahneman synthesizes his research on the way of thinking of human beings The author maintains the widely accepted thesis in current psychology about the two modes of thought: the System 1fast, intuitive and emotional, and the System 2slower, reflective and rational.
The first provides conclusions automatically, and the second, conscious responses. The peculiar thing is that, on most occasions, we do not reflect on which of the two has taken the reins of our behavior.
The book is divided into five parts. In the first part, it presents how the two systems work and how judgments and decision-making are produced by both. The second part delves into the heuristics of judgments and places special emphasis on the difficulties of System 1 to think statistically. The third part focuses on the inability to recognize uncertainty and our own ignorance and overestimation of what we think we understand about the world around us.
The fourth part delves into the nature of economic decisions and presents the theory of perspectives under the hypothesis of the two systems. In the fifth part of the book Kahneman makes a distinction between what he calls “the experiencing self” (related to System 2) and “the remembering self” (related to System 1). Sometimes the goal of happiness of both selves leads to clearly contrasting situations.
Finally, and in a kind of conclusion, the implications of the three distinctions made in the book are examined: the I that remembers in front of the I you experience, decision making in classical economics versus decision making in behavioral economics, and System 1 versus System 2.
Several considerations and reflections on this book
We can consider Kahneman’s starting hypotheses to be extremely original and attractive. In my opinion, he extends the concepts of System 1 and System 2 to all thought processes. This vision perfectly models “the first thing that crossed my mind” decision-making versus those decisions we make after having carefully reflected. We can see an example of this in a simple problem that Kahneman himself poses:
A bat and a ball together cost $1.10.
The bat costs $1 more than the ball.
How much does the ball cost?
The immediate response is given by System 1:
The ball costs $0.10
Only an invocation to System 2 will give us the correct answer.
He System 1 and the System 2a simple way to conceptualize thinking
Physiologically speaking, we could even go so far as to postulate that the responses of System 1 emerge directly from the limbic system, naturally transformed and processed by the neocortical areas, while those of System 2 involve more elaborate processing (the intellectual-cognitive-reflective) They could only be carried out in the most modern cortical areas located in the prefrontal cortical area.
This consideration would place System 2 as a structure exclusively typical of higher animals, evolved evolutionarily as a complement to System 1.
Possible criticisms of Kahneman’s work
Kahneman’s hypotheses could be criticized as excessively simplistic and somewhat anthropocentric but if we reflect a little, the analysis of behavior from this point of view allows us to explain a large number of reactions observed in human behavior in general and, in particular, in the decision-making processes that must be taken to a greater or lesser extent. always in uncertain environments.
The descriptions of the different hypotheses proposed in the book are, in my opinion, excessively repetitive and not very synthetic (they could really be described in a few paragraphs) and the author intends to demonstrate their validity with the somewhat disorderly presentation of the results. from a considerable number of experiments, which do not always seem to be the most appropriate and some of which do not provide very consistent arguments
Unfortunately, Kahneman does not delve too deeply into the processes of gestation and birth of the different hypotheses he presents, processes that would probably facilitate their assimilation by readers.
Between academic and commercial…
The book It seems conceived more as a popular book for the general public (along the lines of a best-seller or a self-help book) than as a scientific work. The examples, experiments and particular cases appear profusely described, sometimes in a somewhat chaotic and disorderly manner and without a very defined common thread, illustrating various aspects of the dualities presented.
Despite its informative nature, the book is not exempt from scientific rigor. All statements made and each of the experiments are adequately referenced. At the end all bibliographic references, the author’s notes and also the conclusions are included.
The most interesting thing: the study on the anchor effect
After reading it, one cannot help but feel at once identified and surprised by some of the mental processes described in the book Loss aversion and the anchoring effect seem especially interesting. In the first, we are shown the natural tendency of people to avoid losing rather than gaining benefits. This leads to risk aversion when evaluating a possible gain, since avoiding a loss is then preferred to receiving a benefit.
The call anchor effect (or ‘anchoring effect’) tends to make us take as a reference the first offer (first piece of information) that we have been given, mainly when we do not have complete and accurate information. It is also worth highlighting the effort made by Kahneman to numerically quantify the intensity of the anchoring effect, a quantification that is not easy to carry out in most psychological processes. The anchoring effect is widely used in economic negotiation or marketing environments.
A book recommended to professionals and the curious
In summary, reading this book would be recommended not only to professionals in the psychological sciences but in general. to anyone interested in getting to know themselves a little better delve into the processes that determine your decisions and equip yourself with mechanisms that allow you to advance one step further on the path to your happiness.
