Thinking, Fast and Slow

Daniel Kahneman | 2013

The mind is a hilariously muddled compromise between incompatible modes of thought in this fascinating treatise by a giant in the field of decision research.

Psychologist Kahneman positions a brain governed by two clashing decision-making processes. The largely unconscious System 1, he contends, makes intuitive snap judgments based on emotion, memory, and hard-wired rules of thumb and the painfully conscious System 2, laboriously checks the facts and does the math, but is so “lazy” and distractible that it usually defers to System 1.

Kahneman uses this scheme to frame a scintillating discussion of his findings in cognitive psychology and behavioral economics, and of the ingenious experiments that tease out the irrational, self-contradictory logics that underlie our choices.

All described factors play directly and indirectly a role in public governance. All public leaders and managers should be aware of the so thoroughly described systems of our brains and behaviour. They makes thinks clear an understandable. The book is an epiphany.

Bibliography

Kahneman, D. (2013) Thinking, Fast and Slow. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux