Book summary: Thinking fast and slow

Here is the summary of a bestseller written by Daniel Kahneman. Enjoy reading.

Our decision making is governed by two different thinking systems:
1. System one- Fast, intuitive, feeling based system

2. System two- Slow, reasoning based system

“When we think of ourselves, we identify with System two. The conscious, training self that has beliefs, makes choices, decides what to think about and about what to do.” 

-Daniel Kahneman

Even though system two believes that it is controlling our lives, it is actually system one which controls our life, more than we can realize.

“System one originally originates impressions and feelings that are the main sources of the explicit beliefs and deliberate choices of system two…(system two) is the secret author of many of the choices and judgments you make” 

-Daniel Kahneman

Three fundamental ways by which system one (the fast thinking system) makes costly decisions are:
1) Frequent exposure bias
“A realistic way to make people believe in falsehood is repetition, because familiarity is not easily distinguished from truth. Authoritarian institutions and marketers have always known this fact“

-Daniel Kahneman

To challenge the Frequent exposure bias and to exercise free will, we must pause before an important decision and ask ourselves “Is this the best option I’ve been frequently exposed to?“

2) Status quo bias 
System one of our brain is biased towards status quo because system one psychologically weighs losses twice as much as gains (loss aversion). System one is emotionally attached to objects it owns or invests in (endowment effect) and over values the status quo.

To challenge the status quo bias, we should ask ourselves “What opportunities do I lose by maintaining the status quo?”

3) Tunnel vision 
System one loves to use limited information to form a quick judgment and blocks out all the conflicting information. You can call it tunnel vision, but the author calls it W-Y-S-I-A-T-I (what you see is all there is) system. This system sees one or more informations and then “infers and invents causes and intentions, then neglects ambiguity and suppresses doubt“.

To confront the tunnel vision bias we must ask ourselves “Why might the opposite be true?” 

“MAINTAINING ONE’S VIGILANCE AGAINST BIASES IS NOT A CHORE BUT A CHANCE TO AVOID THE COSTLY MISTAKES WE MAKE, WHICH IS SOMETIMES WORTH THE EFFORT” 

-Daniel Kahneman

Here is a link of the book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0374533555/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_t1_fZGHEb64433GX

Happy reading!