Thinking through and through rather than mere acknowledgment of what Daniel Kahneman, a Professor of Psychologist and Public Affairs Emeritus at Princeton University termed WYSIATI – what you see is all there is – in this book “Thinking, Fast and Slow” might not be your cup of tea as it isn’t mine but considering it might just save you a world of hurt, pain, and regret.
Thinking critically takes effort, it takes focus and attention. It requires self-control to make informed decisions instead of rushing in with half-baked considerations stemming from our impulses and intuitions. Thanks to his insight and research, I can now understand my biases.
He expounds on two methods we use in making decisions, what he calls System 1 – basically memory-sourced intuitions and impulses and System 2 – requiring effort and acts of self-control. Since the said System 2 is lazy and reluctant to put more effort than is necessary, we depend on the quick response of intuition and impulses; these have always proven to be poor solutions when actual focus and attention are required.
With adept expansion about how we make decisions, Kahneman areas where our intuitions serve best when used and those that only critical thinking is best suited. He engages the reader through magnificent research by other scientists and sets you up to question your reason for inclining toward a specific decision.
Some of his best work – that brought me to a halting realization – on fast and slow thinking are the concepts of priming, WYSIATI, anchoring, availability cascade, illusions of both skill and validity and the halo effect.
I must say that this was the first tough book I have had to read – at least when I started through the first pages – and the one that took me the longest time possible; since I had to do some of these experiments and observe how others behave too.
This is a book that opens you up to your limitations of the mind and heuristics concerning decision-making. WHY WE DECIDE THE WAY WE DECIDE.
I am now able to understand a great many behaviors of those around me and the public orientations and decisions in general. Here is my favorite quote from the book about cognitive ease;
“A reliable way to make people believe in falsehoods is frequent repetition, because familiarity is not easily distinguished from truth.”
