![\"Book](\"https:\/\/staging-wmplo.xyz\/mark-c-divi5\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/978-0-374-27563-1.jpg\" "\\"Thinking")
Daniel Kahneman, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economics, is a genius in our midst.<\/p>\nDaniel Kahneman, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economics, is a genius in our midst.<\/p>\n
At seventy-eight-years-old, Kahneman has spent the majority of his life studying how the human mind makes decisions, especially their most important ones.<\/p>\n
Leveraging a life\u2019s work of research, in his new book,\u00a0Thinking Fast And Slow<\/em>, Kahneman concludes that, all too often, we make incredibly irrational choices \u2013 generally because we\u2019re not sufficiently aware of how our minds work.<\/p>\n Kahneman tells us that we have two ways of thinking, what he’s named \u00a0\u201cSystem 1\u201d and \u201cSystem 2.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSystem 1\u201d is effectively our auto-pilot.\u00a0 Acting \u00a0fast,<\/em> and with no sense of voluntary control, our intuitive mind continuously generates impressions, intentions and feelings.\u00a0\u00a0 When subsequently endorsed by \u201cSystem 2,\u201d which is most of the time, these impulses turn into our voluntary actions.<\/p>\n \u201cSystem 2\u201d is our rational mind.\u00a0 Deliberate, detailed and more specific in it\u2019s processing of complex information, \u201cSystem 2\u201d slows<\/em> things down to make more conscious and reasoned decisions.<\/p>\n There are a few things you need to know about \u201cSystem 2\u201d that might surprise you.\u00a0 First, it tends to be extremely lazy relying too often on the instinctive direction it receives from its sibling, “System 1.” \u00a0 And what might appear to be \u201cSystem 2\u2019s\u201d greatest strength \u2013 it\u2019s ability to sharply focus \u2013 actually renders it blind at times to important information.<\/p>\n The book is filled with summaries of experiments Kahneman and other academics have conducted on human psychology; Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons performed one of the more interesting ones.<\/p>\n The researchers produced a short film of two teams passing basketballs.\u00a0 One team wears white jerseys and the other wears black.\u00a0 Film viewers were instructed to count the number of passes made by the white team, ignoring the black players.<\/p>\n The players are constantly in motion and the task requires close attention.\u00a0\u00a0 Halfway through the film, a person wearing a gorilla suit appears, crosses the court, thumps her chest and moves on.\u00a0\u00a0 That gorilla is in view for almost ten seconds.<\/p>\n According to Kahneman, thousands of people have seen the video and the majority (including me) never notice the gorilla. \u00a0Apparently, the extremely focused task of counting creates a form of blindness to other stimuli.<\/p>\n In another experiment, grocery store customers in Sioux City, Iowa encountered a sales promotion for Campbell\u2019s Soup at 10% off the regular price.\u00a0\u00a0 On one day, the sign said \u201cLimit 12 per person;\u201d on the next day it said \u201cNo limit per person.\u201d<\/p>\n Shoppers bought an average of 7 cans when the limit was on \u2013 twice<\/em> as much as when there was \u201cno limit.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 Kaheman\u2019s conclusion is that people quickly (“System 1”)\u00a0and without slowing down (“System 2″) connected the perceived idea of rationing to feelings of scarcity, and impetuously acted by purchasing extra cans of soup.<\/p>\n So, if both \u201cSystem 1\u201d and \u201cSystem 2\u201d have the potential to lead us astray, what\u2019s a person to do?\u00a0 According to Kahneman, we must rely on a balance between the two.<\/p>\n Acting on our instincts alone, he insists, is fraught with risk.\u00a0 Therefore, he urges us to avoid impulsive decision-making by making\u00a0\u00a0greater use of things like systems, weighted formulas, check lists and \u201cpre-mortems.” \u00a0He also wants us to be vigilant in monitoring \u201cSystem 2\u201d so its reluctance to invest more time and energy on evaluating our choices is consistently rebuffed.<\/p>\n