Thinking, Fast and Slow

This is like reading a book written by a wise grandparent - there's lots of knowledge and wisdom, occasional racist/classist statements, and long diatribes about since-refuted research. The system 1 and system 2 framing is extremely unconvincing since 1) as Kahneman notes, it doesn't actually exist and 2) a continuum model based on conscious cognitive effort is far more parsimonious. That being said, this is still an excellent grand tour of behavioral economics research. Highly recommend

I was a bit skeptical about this book at first because the writer has won the Nobel prize for economics. However, my skepticism was assuaged when I started reading the book and learned that 1. Kahneman is not an economist and 2. his style of writing is very down to earth and disarming. (He must be quite the manipulator if he wants to be.)

I loaned this book from the library, and it has a several-months-long waiting list so I can't renew the loan. I wish I could spend more time memorising some of the stuff because this book gave me a lot to think about. Richard Thaler's recommendation, printed on the back cover, is quite accurate: "Buy it fast. Read it slowly. It will change the way you think!" This surely is a book best read slowly, and I may even buy a copy at some point.

That being said, I am very impressed at how approachably and clearly this book is written, even though the subject areas are by no means my forté. Congratulations, Kahneman, you successfully explained statistics to a person whose brain goes on strike at the sight of numbers!

Part of the engagement and slowness of reading were the thought exercises.
They were enlightening in themselves, but it was also interesting to see how my thinking most times aligned and sometimes diverged from the average person's.

In general, the thought patterns presented in the book are very recognizable. Below, there are some interesting ideas and concepts that Kahneman discusses in the book. In my mind, many of those ideas have clear implications on social transformation and social interaction among people. Therefore, this book also helped me better understand people whose behaviour I find frustrating and/or incomprehensible, such as people who get angry at the idea of eating more plant-based food or trying to solve structural racism.

Also, one of the most surprising and interesting things I learned from this book was that stock picking is based almost purely on luck. That makes the industry even more stupid and arbitrary than it already was in my mind.

- "The mind—especially System 1—appears to have a special aptitude for the construction and interpretation of stories about active agents, who have personalities, habits, and abilities." (29)

- Ego depletion, meaning running out of mental energy

- "Many people are overconfident, prone to place too much faith in their intuitions. They apparently find cognitive effort at least mildly unpleasant and avoid it as much as possible." (45)

- "When people believe a conclusion is true, they are also very likely to believe arguments that appear to support it, even when these arguments are unsound." (45)

- "It is the consistency of the information that matters for a good story, not its completeness. Indeed, you will often find that knowing little makes it easier to fit everything you know into a coherent pattern." (87) > This helped me understand why people fall for all kinds of weird bullshit.

- "[T]he illusions of validity and skill are supported by a powerful professional culture. We know that people can maintain an unshakable faith in any proposition, however absurd, when they are sustained by a community of like-minded believers. Given the professional culture of the financial community, it is not surprising that large numbers of individuals in that world believe themselves to be among the chosen few who can do what they believe others cannot" [correctly predict changes in the stock market]. (217)

- "[T]he disadvantages of a change loom larger than its advantages, inducing a bias that favors the status quo." (292) > This is probably a partial reason why some people feel threatened about reducing inequality.

- "System 1 [intuitive thinking] is much better at dealing with individuals than categories." (329) > This is probably related to why news and stories about individual people are more effective and memorable than information about larger phenomena, e.g. human rights violations.

- "The frenetic picture taking of many tourists suggests that storing memories is often an important goal, which shapes both the plans for the vacation and the experience of it. The photographer does not view the scene as a moment to be savored but as a future memory to be designed." (388–389) > This is probably related to why so many people focus on filming music shows rather than enjoying the music and the moment. I wonder if this idea has been researched in connection to social media!

All in all, this was a very enlightening, entertaining and educational book.

Too descriptive. Sooo many pages for one idea, typical for these types of general audience psychology books. Got my nuggets and left, recommend the same for you, if you know what you came for. If you don't, you need to be an avid reader with too much time. It's not entertaining enough either.

J'avais entendu parler à plusieurs reprises, toujours de façon positive, de ce livre de Daniel Kahneman. J'ai fini par me laisser tenter et je viens de le lire.

Dans ce long essai, l'auteur expose le fruit de ses longues années de recherche en psychologie, autour du thème de la prise de décision. Son propos s'articule autour de la distinction entre deux "systèmes", deux modalités de décision dans notre cerveau :

Le Système 1 est intuitif, rapide, mais soumis à des biais, des stéréotypes, des approximations, influençable par les circonstances, et donc capable d'erreurs de jugement.

Le Système 2 est analytique, précis, mais plus lent et parfois "paresseux" quand il valide les intuitions du Système 1 sans procéder à une analyse plus détaillée.

L'auteur détaille évidemment les caractéristiques de ces deux systèmes, sur le mode de fonctionnement, les avantages et les inconvénients de chacun. Il approfondit ensuite en exposant longuement les différents biais et phénomènes auquel le Système 1 est soumis et qui peuvent l'amener à se tromper.

Le contenu est souvent très intéressant, avec de nombreuses expériences qui illustrent le propos, mais l'auteur a tendance à être un peu bavard et à se répéter, ce qui peut rendre la lecture un peu laborieuse et rébarbative. Il faut soit prendre son temps entre chaque chapitre, soit au contraire passer rapidement certains passages qui ne font que reformuler des concepts déjà exposés quelques pages auparavant. Le début, quand l'auteur présente les bases de sa réflexion autour des deux systèmes, est passionnant et limpide. La suite est un peu moins plaisante, alternant des passages passionnants et d'autres plus laborieux. C'est en tout cas l'expérience de lecture que j'ai eu ces derniers jours.

L'ensemble est tout de même très intéressant et éclairant sur un sujet captivant et souvent méconnu. J'espère en avoir retenu une part conséquente, cela peut toujours être utile !

Pretty good to read, but don't think I can do much with this information since it is not going to stick with me. Lost interest near the end and dnd'd after 80%.

Shortly after I started reading this book I read an article on taking smart notes and so I naturally applied it for recording interesting quotes and tidbits from this book. Following is not even close to all of my notes, but more their condensed summary.

I no longer remember why exactly I added the book to my reading list. It's in one of my self-improvement drawer. And in that regard I think I will have a hard time practically using things I learned from this book. As even the author himself noted - even decades of studying this field has not helped his intuition too much. There are several reasons for this - most notably that the errors in our judgement often come from "System 1" in our head - the intuitive, quick associative memory that mostly runs amok and makes split-second decisions throughout our lives. The slower, logical part of our brain (System 2) only takes over occasionally when it detects a problem. And the crux of the issue is that more often than not - we will not notice an issue until way too late.

One of the recurring topics is the feud between "rational" school of economics and the psychologists. The simplistic economic theory treats all actors as rational, always having all the information and making the best decisions. I find it self-evident that is absolutely not the case. Humans are maybe not downright irrational, but certainly prone to making less-than ideal decisions due to various reasons.

The book itself is full of examples and references to experiments that you get to replicate in your own head. In most of these, the reason for the example is to show you how your intuition and brain makes incorrect decisions. And there are plenty reasons why we falter. Some are more commonly known cognitive biases.The priming effect, anchoring, sunk cost fallacy, planning fallacy and more.

In my head I have a list of situations in which I would love my "logical self"(System 2) to engage and carefully consider things. When people throw percentages, probabilities or similar numbers in my direction and expect some decision for example. Or maybe I would love to do a pre-mortem (just as you area bout to finalize a decision imagine that you are a year in the future it turned out terribly - write what went wrong).

One excerpt/example from the book (in my own words so any mistakes are my own). On the topic of emotional framing there was this experiment:

Participants were told to imagine they were given 50 USD. Then they were given one of the following options:

1. You can keep 20 USD or gamble and possibly lose it all
2. You can lose 30 USD or gamble to keep the whole sum

Before you read the below "spoiler" try to first answer what you would choose in each of the cases based on a gut feeling. Then think about it a bit more and compare.

As you probably expect - most people will play it safe and take 20 USD if given the first formulation (frame) and gamble in the second (even though options are ultimately the same).

Some individuals are more resilient and can resist this framing effect, but on average people tend to play it safe (take no decision). But if they feel their options are bad, they will more likely try to gamble.

Plenty more could be written on the book (especially since I kept copious notes this time around). All in all - I have definitely found a lot of surprises and feel like I've learned something about humanity as a whole. Fingers crossed I'll remember it next time I'll need it.

My husband loved this book, and he is been constantly encouraging me to read it. I started in 2013, but I read the whole thing now.
. It is a good book, categorizing thought processes in two categories: category one (fast thinking), and category two (low [and deliberate]) thinking. It describes both methods in a clear and instinctive way, and and has caused me to pause. It suggests that, rather than reacting instinctively and "fast", In the sometimes worthwhile to allow the brain to remind you to actually consider; and may be worth the time and effort.
My only PERSONAL complaint is the huge number of examples. I suppose that most people may appreciate them, but being a mathematician and scientist, , having spelled out for the reader each possible situation were actually thinking and doing the mathematical equations is useful is kind of overkill! But again, the actual examples are probably very good on the whole for most readers. But having thought processes divided into two types is definitely enlightening!

An exciting book about people's behaviour, behaviour economics and chooses we made. It's more a scientific book than regular non-fiction.

Sometimes goes very tedious and without any conclusion, however, remarks at the end of chapters work great to summarize them.

An exciting book about people's behaviour, behaviour economics and chooses we made. It's more a scientific book than regular non-fiction.

Sometimes goes very tedious and without any conclusion, however, remarks at the end of chapters work great to summarize them.

Really insightful book. I didn't expect so much of it to be focused on behavioral economics though. If you liked the second half of this book, then you would love the book "Predictably Irrational".

The author suggests that we consist of two systems. System 1 and System 2. System 1 is fast and System 2 is slow. We always use System 1 and sometimes System 2. Why? System 2 is lazy. System 2 is "rational". Not everyone likes to think harder about the problem. If something is not so important for us, then we just use System 1; it is just our "experience". I would compare this system to "pattern recognition", it is fast, but that's it. Sometimes we need to go deeper, so System 2 is needed. This system is more "rational".
We also consist of two selves: the remembering self and the experiencing self. The remembering self does the living and the experiencing self keeps score and makes the choices. In most experiments, we neglect the duration of an event. We remember peak moments and the end of the event.
We are not rational, so we should help ourselves using algorithms.