The Human Mind's Two Systems at Work - Book Report/Review Example

Thinking fast and slow- Book Report Book summary In his book ‘Thinking fast and slow’; Daniel Kahneman draws from decades of research he conducted with his colleague on cognitive bias, happiness, and prospect theory. He employs the book to conclude that the human mind always has two systems at work, which he refers to as system 1 and 2. He states that system 1 is based on intuition or an ‘automatic’ system that can also be referred to as fast thinking. He terms system 2 as an ‘effortful’ system or slow-thinking that requires an effort or sometime for human beings to derive the answer (Kahneman 24). Kahneman goes further to state that while the two systems may appear well designed to deal with the world, the systems do create some problems. The problem becomes created when system is more appropriate, system 1 filters in. in simpler terms, Kahneman argues that human beings’ trusted intuition can direct them to the wrong answer or findings as well as wrong conclusions. The author points that jumping to wrong or right conclusions arises as a result of human beings’ biases and heuristics/rule of thumb. System 2 is well suited and accurate in most situation, however, human beings think slowly when they are overwhelmed and do not have a fast answer to jump to. When answers easily present themselves to human beings, rarely do we take the time to second guess our intuition. Thus, humans tend to make erroneous judgment and draw erroneous conclusions based on shortcuts they fail to recognize existed. Priming also contributes to affect human decision making. Kahneman points out that fast or intuitive thinking is not always wrong (Kahneman 234). In fact, it is vital in many instances and there are many wonders of intuitive thinking. In his book ‘thinking, fast and slow’, Kahneman tries to forward the argument that human beings are far less rational than they believe themselves to be as a result of the problem created by system 1 and 2 of their minds. The fourfold Pattern- chapter 29 The fourfold pattern holds that people assign weights to an object’s characteristic when evaluating it. Weights are closely related to probabilities, but they are different. According to the fourfold pattern by Kahneman, the expected value outcome for a gamble or an investment decision that one undertakes is the average of each potential outcome, weighted by its probability (Kahneman 192). The pattern holds that certainty and possibility maintain a powerful control over individuals when associated with losses. When the weight of good but improbable outcomes is irrationally high, this gets referred to as the possibility. The fourfold model can be used to explain people’s attraction to gambles such as the lottery and investment plan such as insurance policies. People overweight small probabilities in the aforementioned examples. Simply put, consistent overweighting of improbable outcomes, which is a characteristic of intuitive thinking, leads to lower outcomes in the long run. People appear to place value on a change in probability dependent on its reference point. The lure of winning something from nothing is much more than the lures of winning something when one already has a share hold of it. In their article ‘The Neural Basis of Economic Decision-Making in the Ultimatum Game’, Sanfey et al employ the use of functional magnetic resonance imaging on Ultimate Game players to find out the brain areas involved in the cognitive and emotional processes involved in economic decision making. The results of their study indicate that both parts of the brain involved with cognitive and emotion offer activity in relation to economic decisions (Safney et al 1758). However, the part of the brain related to emotion offers significant heightened activity in regard to economic decision of unfair offers. A parallel of this study can be drawn to the fourfold pattern. The unfair offers provided for the Ultimate Game -UG players induce conflict in the responder between their cognitive motives which wants to accept and their emotional motives which wants to reject (Safney et al 1756). High emotional motive arises within a player when they are offered what they deem as an unfair deal. The attachment of a basic sense of fairness and unfairness in the economic decision model contradicts the fourfold pattern which is purely based on intuition. In their article, ‘Diminishing Reciprocal Fairness by Disrupting the Right Prefrontal Cortex’, Knoch et al go further to expound on the findings by Sanfey et al. they state that not only does emotion control a UG player to reject an unfair offer, but also the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex- DLPFC, is vital in its role as an implementer of equity-related behaviors. Their study indicates the vital role played by the DLPFC in over-riding self-interested impulses and enabling players to implement their fairness goals (Knoch et al 829). The results of the study are inconsistent with the fourfold pattern, which indicates the self-interest of the economic decision maker in attaching value to an object’s characteristics. Keeping Score- chapter 32 In ‘keeping score’, Kahneman acknowledges that the main-motivators of money seeking may not be entirely economic. For the extremely rich, seeking to generate extra money is more of a desire to maintain their self-regard and self-worth. This chapter introduces the concept of mental accounts that humans hold as a method of keeping score in addition to that of physical accounts. The author postulates that fear of regret affects many peoples decision-making. Regret as an emotion serves to direct peoples economic decision making. This view is similar to Sanfey et al view and finding which stated that heightened activity in the brain region concerned with emotions supports the vital influence of emotion on human decision making (Safney et al 1758). Regret can be used to make decisions when past inferences are drawn. The attachment of emotion to a past regret helps to guide the economic decisions of past and future among human beings. This chapter by Kahneman supports the conclusion by Sanfey et al who aim to provide support for economic models that acknowledge the influence of emotional factors on decision-making behavior. Works Cited Read More