Thinking, Fast and Slow

De: Daniel Kahneman

Narrado por: Patrick Egan

The guru to the gurus at last shares his knowledge with the rest of us. Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman's seminal studies in behavioral psychology, behavioral economics, and happiness studies have influenced numerous other authors, including Steven Pinker and Malcolm Gladwell. In Thinking, Fast and Slow, Kahneman at last offers his own, first book for the general public. It is a lucid and enlightening summary of his life's work. It will change the way you think about thinking.

Two systems drive the way we think and make choices, Kahneman explains: System One is fast, intuitive, and emotional; System Two is slower, more deliberative, and more logical. Examining how both systems function within the mind, Kahneman exposes the extraordinary capabilities as well as the biases of fast thinking and the pervasive influence of intuitive impressions on our thoughts and our choices. Engaging the reader in a lively conversation about how we think, he shows where we can trust our intuitions and how we can tap into the benefits of slow thinking, contrasting the two-system view of the mind with the standard model of the rational economic agent.

Kahneman's singularly influential work has transformed cognitive psychology and launched the new fields of behavioral economics and happiness studies. In this path-breaking book, Kahneman shows how the mind works, and offers practical and enlightening insights into how choices are made in both our business and personal lives--and how we can guard against the mental glitches that often get us into trouble.

Includes a bonus PDF of illustrations, scientific charts, graphs, and diagrams

Intuition and reason are complementary

Tversky and Kahneman are, without a doubt, two of the most influential psychologists, all categories. Their simple, yet careful and creative experiments revealed how our decision processes are biased in systematic ways. Their research was deservedly awarded the Nobel Prize in economics. In this book, Kahneman summarizes and puts into context his work in a way that only someone who did the research could. Though I was quite familiar with Kahneman's work before reading this book, I learned many new interesting details. Sometimes when reading a long book about something you are interested in, your interest can wane. This book did the opposite. After having read the book, I am even more fascinated by the research described and how it impacts our lives (and it does).

Throughout the book, Kahneman uses the terms "system one and system two". System one is essentially our intuition or gut feeling. It govern most of our decisions and, in general, does a good job, even though it is prone to some biases (which Kahneman and Tversky have been exploring in their careers). System two, on the other hand, is like the sidekick in a movie who thinks she is the star of the movie. Or to use another metaphor I heard from David Eagleman: system two is like the government of a country. It takes credit for all the things that happen in the country, even though the government itself don’t do that much.

In other words, system one sits comfortably in the driving seat for most of our lives. We rely on our gut feelings even when we really shouldn't. System one evaluates arguments and questions in a very lazy way. An argument that sounds good or is presented by a good looking person is probably correct. If you have heard the argument before (even if it was rebutted), it is also probably correct. If the argument is consistent with one memorable episode in your life, then that is a strong argument in its favor (never mind the ten events that contradicted the argument). How you feel also matters a great deal when making decisions using system one. If you feel cranky and hungry, there is just no way that an argument can win you over, but after lunch most arguments suddenly appear much sounder and logical (judges who had just eaten lunch were much more likely to grant parole, than they were just before lunch).

Still sometimes system one gets stuck, and that is when system two comes in. System two requires focused attention. Therefore, it can only do one thing at a time. System two is also more scrutinizing, so if you want to prevent people from fact checking your arguments - do not make them overly complicated because that will just trigger system two - instead make it short, readable, and appealing to the emotions. If you do this, system one might swallow the message and system two won’t know what happened.

These are just some examples of how we work. Read this book and I promise that you will gain much insight into how people work and how they evaluate ideas. You will, of course, learn about all the systematic biases that people, most likely including yourself, employs on a daily basis (confirmation bias, representative bias, availability heuristic, regression to the mean, etc.). Thus, this book, unlike many self-help books, will teach you about yourself and in extension make you more aware of when you might fall into a trap

I am trying to come up with something negative or even just modestly critical to say about this book, but I can’t. It really is an excellent book with content that I believe should be taught in every classroom in the world. Don’t miss it.

*The* Book on Behavioral Decision Theory

I've been a junkie on this topic ever since I took the first class Richard Thaler (Author of "Nudge" and heavily cited in this book) ever offered on Behavioral Decision Theory. Kahneman and Tversky are the great pioneers of the subject. Kahneman's book does not disappoint. This subject is so important it should be required reading.

Kahneman does an excellent job of making the subject clear and understandable. The narration is excellent. This is a first-class effort in every way.

Very interesting!

This book had an incredible amount of interesting material! There are so many interesting ways our minds are tricked by ourselves and the influences on us!

The only downside was it started to feel kind of repetitive because there is a lot of discussion of studies done. There really isn't much progression to the "story" of this work -- at least coming from the perspective of someone fascinated by brain development but nowhere near working in that field of study. I had to take a break from it and listen to something a little more... gripping.

I still highly recommend it for someone who is interested in this topic and the related books Daniel Kahneman is said to have influenced.

Fascinating

Where does Thinking, Fast and Slow rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

This is a good listen. Sometimes more technical books are hard to listen to and follow in audio format. This, I found, was easy to follow and packed full of good, useful information

What did you like best about this story?

It has challenged the way I make decisions and think about my thinking process. This definitly has given me insight into the executive mindset. I have had to pitch ideas and budgets many-a-time. Knowing the impact of

Any additional comments?

Recommended

Know thysystems

If you could sum up Thinking, Fast and Slow in three words, what would they be?

Nobel Prize worth.

Who was your favorite character and why?

This book revisits Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman works on Prospect Theory (not a romance narrative), and in several passages, Kahneman share with the reader what was like working with Amos and dozens of other big names in behavioral economics along these years. I would say that Kahneman is a real character ;)

Have you listened to any of Patrick Egan’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

No, I did not. Patrick Egan gave us a engaging perfomance. Hard to stop listening.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

Brain Bugs