Thinking, Fast and Slow
*Major New York Times Bestseller
*More than 2.6 million copies sold
*One of The New York Times Book Review's ten best books of the year
*Selected by The Wall Street Journal as one of the best nonfiction books of the year
*Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipient
*Daniel Kahneman's work with Amos Tversky is the subject of Michael Lewis's best-selling The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds
In his mega bestseller, Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman, world-famous psychologist and winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, takes us on a groundbreaking tour of the mind and explains the two systems that drive the way we think.
System 1 is fast, intuitive, and emotional; System 2 is slower, more deliberative, and more logical. The impact of overconfidence on corporate strategies, the difficulties of predicting what will make us happy in the future, the profound effect of cognitive biases on everything from playing the stock market to planning our next vacation—each of these can be understood only by knowing how the two systems shape our judgments and decisions.
Engaging the reader in a lively conversation about how we think, Kahneman reveals where we can and cannot trust our intuitions and how we can tap into the benefits of slow thinking. He offers practical and enlightening insights into how choices are made in both our business and our personal lives—and how we can use different techniques to guard against the mental glitches that often get us into trouble. Topping bestseller lists for almost ten years, Thinking, Fast and Slow is a contemporary classic, an essential book that has changed the lives of millions of readers.
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Readers say *Thinking, Fast and Slow* by Daniel Kahneman offers profound insights into human decision-making, highlighting the distinction between fas...
A bit hard to rate. 4,5 stars because it's good but a bit too drawn out at times.
Pro:
I have a masters degree in psychology and the whole idea of there being fast and slow thinking brain modules seemed way oversimplified to me. Why would there even be a divide? Why not a slow progress from one to the other? But I was surpriced to discover that all the reviews I have read on the book have been wrong. This is not a book about a dichotomy of brain modules. It's a book on some of the ways we think and decide automatically. So while I though this book would be somewhat pseudo-scientific it was actually very scientific indeed and Kahneman has a really good understanding of psychology. He explains some evolutionary psychological modules but doesn't really explain how we got them or why we have them. For that you have to read a EP book. But this was not a bad read as a deeper intro into psychology.
Con:
It's a very long book. There are a lot of studies explained in it and new studies are explained all the time. It's hard to keep you concentration on the page when the story itself is not clearly coherent or illustrative. This would make for a much better documentary series where all the models are presented in colors and with movements. As text alone it's hard to follow at times, especially for daydreamers.
But if you have the time to read it then go ahead. Kahneman's clear understanding of psychology is something that is rarely seen in this degree. It will take anyone 5 years to understand these things this clearly, maybe even longer. So get all the concentration of it that you can come across. Go on, read one of the clear thinkers in psychology. It won't make you more stupid, that's for sure.
Pro:
I have a masters degree in psychology and the whole idea of there being fast and slow thinking brain modules seemed way oversimplified to me. Why would there even be a divide? Why not a slow progress from one to the other? But I was surpriced to discover that all the reviews I have read on the book have been wrong. This is not a book about a dichotomy of brain modules. It's a book on some of the ways we think and decide automatically. So while I though this book would be somewhat pseudo-scientific it was actually very scientific indeed and Kahneman has a really good understanding of psychology. He explains some evolutionary psychological modules but doesn't really explain how we got them or why we have them. For that you have to read a EP book. But this was not a bad read as a deeper intro into psychology.
Con:
It's a very long book. There are a lot of studies explained in it and new studies are explained all the time. It's hard to keep you concentration on the page when the story itself is not clearly coherent or illustrative. This would make for a much better documentary series where all the models are presented in colors and with movements. As text alone it's hard to follow at times, especially for daydreamers.
But if you have the time to read it then go ahead. Kahneman's clear understanding of psychology is something that is rarely seen in this degree. It will take anyone 5 years to understand these things this clearly, maybe even longer. So get all the concentration of it that you can come across. Go on, read one of the clear thinkers in psychology. It won't make you more stupid, that's for sure.
This was a bit of a mindblower. I'm always open to some counterintuitive conclusions, assuming the premises are reasonable and the logic is sturdy. And Kahneman's book is full of such ideas. But what was continually surprising was how much sense these revelations made. It's useful, though, to have labels to apply to them—confirmation bias, availability bias, the halo effect, etc. As the author himself points out, it's not necessarily going to change the way you act day-to-day. But it does at least give you a bit of insight and understanding, which I think gradually has some effect. And even if it doesn't, insight and understanding are worthwhile goals all on their own.
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