By Liz Else, New Scientist
(Image: Tono Labra/age fotostock/Getty)
Do biases – some of them dangerous – creep into every strategic choice we make? After a lifetime of research, Daniel Kahneman, the man touted as the world’s most influential psychologist, is convinced that they do.
But to judge by some of the questions and comments at the end of his lecture at the Royal Institution in London last week, the capacity crowd he addressed seemed to have a bit of trouble with Kahneman’s arguments – namely, his key notions of fast and slow thinking – and the potential for distortions in judgment that arise from not recognising the biases these two modes can let us fall into.
According to Kahneman, fast thinking is intuitive and runs most of the show: associations, impressions, feelings, intentions, and preparations for action all flow seamlessly. It produces a representation of the world around us and lets us walk and avoid obstacles while thinking about something else. It’s the mode we’re in when we play football, chat down the pub, or take a shower. It’s all about doing, not reflecting.
Then there is the slow-thinking mode. This monitors, reflects, helps us fill in tax forms or learn to cook. We call on this mode when the stakes are high, when we detect an error – or when we need some rule-based thinking.
Perhaps the unease in the crowd reflected the fact that Kahneman’s fast and slow thinking are just the tip of a cognitive iceberg – recognising what lies beneath means learning to live with unsettling and counterintuitive ideas about how our brains work.
