In his book Thinking Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman puts the cat among the pigeons as regards human rationality. He purports to demonstrate that we are seriously irrational in some areas of our lives. It is like asking ‘is the Queen English?’ and finding out she isn't! We always thought we were rational but it seems we aren't, at least according to Kahneman who got a Nobel prize in economics (not medicine) for his trouble. But didn't we build up the worlds of science, engineering, agriculture, etc. based on logical thinking and reasoning? Reason has served us very well so far, has a track record and has stood the test of time.
But not so fast! It seems we are prone to no end of hidden biases in our intuitive thinking and, even worse, we don't change when our errors are pointed out. We think fast with what Kahneman calls System 1, which is another name for our spontaneous automatic thought processes, and slow with System 2, the workhorse of rolling up your sleeves and getting stuck into a problem and fully engaging the brain. Everyone agrees that we do have these discrete yet complementary mental capacities; he is not claiming to have discovered them. What he does lay claim to is showing how they can both make basic logical mistakes – especially System 1, mainly because it is lazy. No heresies yet.
The bulk of his work involved the study of decision-making under risk, calculating logical probabilities and showing how we make basic intuitive calculating errors. A lot of what he says could be put down to common sense, or the lack of it, and the absence of experience based on a predictable environment with repetitive rapid feedback. The 10 000 h rule, or spending sufficient time and effort to master something with proper guidance, cuts out much intuitive error. Establishing baselines and reference points, being aware of common pitfalls and having error-detecting systems in place are all common practice for any self-respecting enterprise. So this is not new knowledge. Individual appraisal with inbuilt system error detection alleviates most errors ‘in reasoning’.
The book uses heuristics to explain some of our common, error-prone tendencies:
(a) Risk aversion: We just don't want to gamble if we might lose our status quo.
(b) The peak-end effect: We give more importance to impressions of severe pain or joy and how things finish, rather than to the assessment of the grand total of pain or joy over time. We ignore duration of experience in favour of quality (good or bad).
(c) Regression toward the mean: This is an established statistical observation that things in life tend toward the average of what is measured. This is an observation but not a causality, and you could say that's the way life is and everyone knows that.
(d) We are built to believe and we have to try to unbelieve: This is a very interesting observation but no explanation as to why this is the case is given.
(e) Framing: If something is put another way, we will give a different answer to the same problem. Unless you have done your homework beforehand and are immovable, it will be difficult to avoid giving in a little.
(f) Anchoring: We are influenced by flimsy hooks or numbers that somehow register with us as a bargaining position in the back of our minds. All things being equal, if you haven't made up your mind firmly about a topic, this will sway you.
(g) Two selves: We have the remembering self, which is seemingly most well-known to us and which makes our decisions, and we have the here-and-now self, which we cannot grasp and is more elusive. This is Kahneman's idea. What about the future self?
(h) Priority of what we already possess: What counts for us is what value things have for us here and now, which Kahneman calls their utility. This means whether we are going to gain or lose or go up or down in our position of finance, prestige, worth etc. This tallies with the concept of possession being nine-tenths of the law.
These are very revealing if not disturbing exposures of our dearest organ – the brain. We are absolutely in the disability category when it comes to thinking straight, according to this book. We are put off by extraneous noises, superficial comments at the wrong time and good-looking people. The latter is called the ‘halo effect’. Something you find attractive expands to encompass everything about the person or thing, even though you haven't any proof of its entire wholesomeness. However, many of Kahneman's experiments were done in classroom situations or Gallup-poll scenarios which are not real life. It seems unbelievable that a judge's sentencing pattern could be changed by suggesting an extraneous number before deciding on a case. In the book, a lady (Linda) is described as an active feminist with librarian skills and you are then asked do you think (a) she is likely to be librarian, or (b) she is likely to be an activist and a librarian? The correct answer is given as (a), which is to send the herd the wrong way and then tell them they are all wrong! A similar scenario applies to Tom the librarian; they are trick questions. Another straw man is his assessment of recruiters for the Israeli Army, which is a bit unfair to the status quo and probably wrong. The recruiters had experience along with the 10 000 h and feedback, and Kahneman acknowledges it is a somewhat impossible task to predict who will be a leader or not based on performance climbing a wall. He ends by suggesting a rating scale for attributes for leadership, which is a great suggestion (and one much used in hiring people).
The Prospect Theory is Kahneman's calling card and the associated infographic is an S-shaped curve which was embellished to be his Nobel crest. It designates an economic pattern of behaviour when dealing with gain and loss. As such, the economists give it praise. However, when it comes to the human mind and how it works, and extrapolating outside the box of what he has demonstrated in one more acceptable way or another, he is not correct. He talks about happiness, the good life, luck, chance and statistics. Coming from a background of numbers and biases, it is improbable that he could be an expert on affective life, causality (if you deify luck and trends and don't explain what causes them), fulfilment in life and the extraordinary world of love, emotion, desire, lust and belief to mention a few of the headline items in any human mind. These are serious biases for any cognition and are the major players in our thought and affective lives.
Kahneman has very interesting insights into heuristic biases and very intelligent and practical advice about not making basic errors in logic. To suggest that we are less than rational and should doubt our reason is not seriously challenged by his work. He mainly worked with hypothetical scenarios, whereas the last 15 millennia of human development has proven beyond doubt that man is truly rational and his use of cause and effect should be trusted. Kahneman should stand back and allow those who want to ask the ‘why’ questions, about how and why the human mind works the way it does, get on with discussing the broader understanding of what it means to be human.
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