Humans: We Think We’re Rational, But We’re All Emotions And Stuff
on Thinking, Fast and Slow
You might believe you know very well how you think or how you make a decision — after all, you are human — but you are wrong! ❌
I know it because I was wrong too.
In biological sciences, when studying humans, researchers tend to focus on what makes humans different from other animals. And our abilities to think, imagine, and reason stand out.
But we don’t make use of them every minute of every day.
Thinking is hard. It is frustrating.
So we go about our daily lives almost on auto-pilot. And the thing is, most of the time, we are ruled by our deep emotions, just like any other animal.
This is what I’ve learned from Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman.
💡 It changed my view on how people think and act. Here, I’ll tell you a bit about the lessons that were more interesting for me.
But first, the core of the book:
The Two You: the Fast and the Slow
This is the basis of the book — and the basis for understanding human reasoning, really!
We have two modes of thinking. One is fast and intuitive; the other slow and analytical.
❤️ Intuitive thinking is always there to help us make sense of the world. It is innate and effortless and comes to our help every time we need to answer an easy question, such as:
- What’s that sound, and where does it come from?
- Is that glass at my arm’s reach?
- How hard should I throw this paper to hit the paper basket?
- Is that dog dangerous?
We can quickly answer these questions based on our previous learnings and experiences.
Recognizing a sound and turning our heads in the direction it’s coming from, calculating distances, or interpreting the behavior of a dog (or another person) are all things we do automatically.
📊 Analytical thinking comes to our rescue when we face more complex problems. It requires mental effort and attention to help us answer difficult questions, such as:
- What’s your phone number?
- Where did you leave your car keys?
- How should I fill out this form?
- Can you hear a siren in the distance?
To answer these questions, we need to focus our attention on the answer. So, it is a conscious, voluntary effort — and it shows! Apparently, when we are working on more complex calculations, our pupils widen, and our heart rate increases!
Some people are more impulsive and guided by intuition; others are more reflective and analytical in their reactions.
But even if you see yourself as an analytical thinker, you are not immune to intuitive judgment and impulsive decisions.
It is inherent in being human.
Fast Thinking Governs Our Lives
We cannot afford to think through each little problem we face when we go about our daily lives.
Most of our decisions are quick, and we give them little thought — you only decide what time you want to wake up or if you prefer to have breakfast or take a shower first, once, then it becomes routine.
If we had to consider all the possibilities every time we make a tiny decision, we’d have a breakdown. 🤯
What’s more: in life-or-death situations, we need to think fast to make quick decisions.
In an earthquake, you don’t want to be calculating the odds of survival if you go left or right or jump the window. The roof would fall down your head before you’d make a move!
It Helps Us Make Sense of the World
Our fast thinking relies on our memories, previous life experiences, and what we learn from people around us.
Take this scenario:
Jane and Mary are walking down the street in the countryside and see a large dog on its own coming their way. 🐕
- Jane loves dogs and can only recall good experiences around them, growing up in a family that always had dogs.
- Mary was never interested in dogs, even avoiding them, as she was nearly attacked by a feral dog when she was a kid.
Do you think the two women are going to react similarly?
The sight of the dog will automatically bring memories and emotions to mind. Jane might feel curious and nostalgic; Mary might feel fearful and alert. Jane will be friendly towards the dog; Mary will not.
These women have two different ideas of what a dog is based on their life experiences. And fast thinking will use those ideas to interpret and contextualize the situation, so they can quickly make decisions and react.
This all happens automatically, without them even noticing.
That’s how the brain works in the background — in a new scenario, our brain will search for situations it can associate with so we can use what we have learned before.
The problem is that it can also make us jump to conclusions.
But Fast Thinking is Highly Biased
Automatic and innate as it is, our fast thinking can play tricks on us; it can deceive us and lead us to make mistakes.
It leads to errors of judgment that can mess with our lives and are behind many, if not all, quarrels in the world.
That is because:
- We need the world to make sense, and we build representations of the world that are simplistic;
- Our mind is not made to understand mathematical concepts and calculations easily;
- Our mind is made for stories.
Let’s see these points a little closer — here are the main lessons I’ve learned:
It Creates Stereotypes
Going back to the dog scenario: by associating their idea of a dog with the dog they’re seeing, Jane and Mary are making a biased assumption about this dog.
They have different stereotypes of the dog — for Jane, it is the playful, best-friend stereotype; for Mary, it is the crazy, dangerous one.
With people, it’s the same.
A stereotype is a representation of a type of person. It can be a Nerd, a Girlie-girl, a Cat-person, a Feminist, a Politician, an African-American, an Asian, a Muslim, a Jew, etc.
When we read or hear these terms, we create a representation of the people we put into these groups. Such representation is not the same for everyone: it depends on your own experiences on the opinion of your family, community, or culture.
Stereotypes exist because they can help us survive.
We tend to trust more in people we identify with and less in people we deem different. In ancient times, it would help humans identify between friendly tribes and dangerous peoples.
But stereotypes also drive discrimination. I wrote about this here:
It Doesn’t Work With Probabilities
Numbers are something our mind is not equipped to grasp quickly. And calculating probabilities is a horrible experience.
Slow thinking takes time and mental effort, and we’ll run from it as a cat from water.
🎲 We roll a “regular six-sided die with four green [G] faces and two red [R] faces” 20 times: which of the following sequences do you think would be the most probable:
1. RGRRR
2. GRGRRR
3. GRRRRR
If you bet on option 2, you agree with two-thirds of the people faced with this problem.
The die has twice as many green than red faces, and option 2 shows two Gs, so it aligns with what we would expect, at least compared to option 3, which has only one G.
But, if you look closely, option 1 has the same sequence as in option 2 if we remove the extra G in the beginning. And because sequence 1 is shorter, it is more likely to occur.
An easier-to-follow example is Linda’s problem. Kahneman and his co-authors provided the participants in an experiment with this description of a fictitious woman:
Linda is thirty-one years old, single, outspoken, and very bright. She majored in philosophy. As a student, she was deeply concerned with issues of discrimination and social justice, and also participated in antinuclear demonstrations.
Which alternative is more probable?
Linda is a bank teller.
Linda is a bank teller and is active in the feminist movement.
Most undergraduates chose the second option because it sounds more plausible in that description.
But if you think logically, the probability that Linda is a feminist bank teller is contained within the probability that Linda is a bank teller (feminist or not). So, the probability of the first is higher.
What is happening?
Our fast thinking goes for what is more plausible — it substitutes probability with plausibility; it avoids logical thinking and goes with what our guts tell us.
We look for an easy question to answer: one we don’t have to think about too much.
That is why we are so terrible at understanding statistics in the news! If an article tells us a coherent story, we believe it…
It Falls For Stories That Make Sense
We don’t have all the information all the time. We make judgments based on what we consider at that moment, and it is usually only a tiny portion of everything we should consider.
Stories make information more digestible and memorable.
If you want to convince someone, tell them a good story. One that is plausible and makes sense.
All those books about success stories — why did Google turn into a giant or why is Amazon, or Microsoft, or Apple so successful — tell the past based on what we know now.
It’s easy — everyone wants to make money! 🤑
They build a story based on the facts that matter, based on what went well, leaving behind what was pure coincidence or luck. They tell you a story about how visionary the leader was and what characteristics of that person made the company succeed. And leave out all the rest.
The guys from the Ancient Aliens show — as well as other conspiracy theorists — do the same. They tell you the (pseudo-)facts that support their story and omit everything that doesn’t.
If the story is coherent and you have no access to (or don’t bother to look for) other sources of information, then you might as well fall for their tale.
Concluding
In Sum, fast thinking makes our lives easier — livable — while at the same time, letting us go on committing the same mistakes over and over.
The way our brain works is behind every judgment error, and knowing how it affects our decision-making is essential.
Both to understand our reactions as well as the reactions of those around us.
These are only the ‘lessons’ I stored in my mind — there are so much more. Thinking, Fast and Slow is a ‘bible’ for understanding human reasoning — much more valuable than any so-called self-help book!
There is no shortcut or easy way to avoid jumping to conclusions or being fooled by our intuitions: being aware is all we can do!
🕮 So, read the book. 🕮
Have you read it? What did you think?
What was your favorite part?
