Summary and Analysis of Thinking, Fast and Slow

Based on the Book by Daniel Kahneman

• Publisher: Worth Books
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781504043717
• Topic: Studienhilfen
• Subtopic: Studienführer

So much to read, so little time? This brief overview of Thinking, Fast and Slow tells you what you need to know—before or after you read Daniel Kahneman's book. Crafted and edited with care, Worth Books set the standard for quality and give you the tools you need to be a well-informed reader. This short summary of Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman includes:

• Historical context
• Part-by-part summaries
• Detailed timeline of key events
• Important quotes
• Fascinating trivia
• Glossary of terms
• Supporting material to enhance your understanding of the source work

About Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman: Nobel Prize–winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman explores the mysteries of intuition, judgment, bias, and logic in the international bestseller Thinking, Fast and Slow. His award-winning book explains the different ways people think, whether they're deciding how to invest their money or how to make friends. Kahneman's experiments in behavioral economics, in collaboration with cognitive psychologist Amos Tversky, led to a theory of two systems of thought: the fast thinking used when ducking a blow, and slow thinking that's better employed for making major life decisions. Applying these psychological concepts to different facets of our lives, Kahneman demonstrates how to better understand your own decision-making, and the choices made by others. The summary and analysis in this ebook are intended to complement your reading experience and bring you closer to great work of nonfiction.

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 1’s main job is to assess normality, the evolutionary function that helps us survive—life 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 rate—the 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 brain’s resources quickly. The mind is cognitively busy when it is intensely focused on tasks that demand System 2’s 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 it’s 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 u...