DV Weekend Pickup #54

Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

The awards, honors, and accolades this book has received don't even begin to do it justice, which says a lot, because it has a ton! Kahneman, 2002 Nobel Prize winner for his work in economic sciences engages the reader in a conversation on how we make judgements, our daily decision making, and why we think the way we do. The book features two main characters (parts of the brain)...

System 1 - Fast thinking, intuitive, effortless, automatic, emotional
System 2 - Slow thinking, effortful, deliberate, concentrated, logical

...that work seamlessly together. As you might expect System 2 serves as a monitor for System 1 because for everything that makes System 1 necessary also makes System 1 a liability. The years upon years of research, experiments, and studies conducted by Kahneman and his partner Amos Tversky make this book really special. They remind us...

"We are prone to overestimate how much we understand about the world and underestimate the role of chance events."

...that nothing is as important as we think it is, we make judgements entirely to quickly, and we evaluate the past like we KNEW it was going to happen all along. In the back half, you'll meet two more interesting characters...

Experiencing Self - The one who does the living
Remembering Self - The one who keeps score and makes choices

...that serve as a guide as we learn about the halo effect, outcome bias, prospect theory, the endowment effect, why framing matters, and the phenomenon of regret. Honestly, there is TOO much info to even try to encapsulate in this short review. So here's the deal, if you're at all interested in why humans act the way they do, then there may not be a better book for you to pick up.

Crush the day!