We all believe that we are in control of most things around us, or at least that's what we aim to believe, thrive to imply and fear any opposing statements, but what if you come to understand that you are not in control as you ought to be, not only with your surrounding, but with your very own mind. Dr. Danial Kahneman addresses the idea of how our minds work and whethere if it is biased in his book "Thinking fast and slow" which we will be exploring together in the next few ideas, whether you decide to continue reading or not, it's up to you ..... Isn't it?

True Nature Of Decision Making 

There are around 200 biases and counting, these are at least the ones we have studied so far, unfortunately we can not delete them, however these biases, as discussed in the book, highlight how our thinking can be influenced and sometimes distorted by automatic cognitive processes, and being aware of them can help us make more rational decisions.

So What Do We Do? 

So you might be thinking, I am in control, i mostly can swear that i direct my own mind to focus on certain things which are interesting to me, and hence i design my own perspective about things, i hold the brush and paint this painting, well i hate to tell you that that is what Kahneman called the systems 1 and 2 System 1: This is fast, intuitive, and automatic thinking. It's the kind of thinking we use for quick, everyday decisions and reactions. System 2: This is slower, more deliberate, and analytical thinking. It's used for more complex cognitive tasks that require effort and concentratio n

What's Fast And What's Slow? 

Anchoring bias occurs when people rely too heavily on the first piece of information (the "anchor") they encounter when making decisions. Subsequent information is often evaluated in relation to this anchor, leading to skewed judgments.Example: if you're trying to convince your partner to buy you a 1000 dollars present, you could start by showing them 4000 - 6000 dollars worth of presents throughout the day, so that their mind woulf be anchored on that price range and therfore the 1000 dollars present would seem cheap and affordable.

Anchoring Bias

On the other hand, system 2 is your critical thinking ability, it's the cognitive reliance that we, it's the struggle you would go through when you encounter 13*31= ? for example, despite that the answer is 368, it did not pop up instantly in your head when you encountered it, actually it would have took you a while until you figured the answer, but yeah i guess just because your mind now knows the answer you still have a sense of doubt thinking that you might have know it if you were given simply an extra minute, well i hat to tell you you're still wrong, the answer is 403 not 368.

So What Is System 2? (Slow Thinking)

availability heuristic is a mental shortcut where people make judgments based on the ease with which they can recall or imagine instances of an event, or the availability of certain information, as represented in the bat and the ball example when you coukd not take your eyes off the 10 cents left, If something is readily available in memory, it's often perceived as more likely or important, even if it's not necessarily accurate.

Availability Heuristic

Well don't bother the correct answer is that the ball costs 5 cents, despite the simplicity of such a question, you are not alone, as only 50% of Harvard's students managed to answer it right, and that was due to a biased mind that tells is to follow the shortcuts, as we are not naturally mathematicians. The following is a list of biases that were introduced in the book.

Biases... 

In order to understand what is it you are in control of (System 2) we have to address system 1 first, of course both of the previously mentioned are a sort of explatory names to demonstrate the two styles of thinking our brains do, and they are non existent in real science. So system 1 is the main decision maker in your head, it's your arms turning the driving wheel whenever your eyes see the desired U-turn, it's what comes to your head when you see the equation 2 + 2 =? it's simply the shortcuts your brain has devoloped throughout the years and does it automatically making you not in control

Your In Control Of System 2

Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, and remember information in a way that confirms one's preexisting beliefs or hypotheses, while ignoring or discounting contradictory evidence. If I'm already convinced that Manchester united is the best football club 'which it is' i will be always searching for information that would confirm my preconceived belief, and reject opposing ideas.

Confirmation Bias

To understand more about the biases of our minds and the heuristics it has consider the following question: A bat and a ball, both cost when sold together 1.10 pounds, the bat is one pound more expensive than the ball, so how much is the ball? (consider answering before proceeding) The intuitive biased answer that would come to mind is that the ball costs 10 cents, while if you applied calculation you will see that if the bat is 1 pound more expensive than a 10 cents ball then the total would be 1.20 not 1.10 as given, so what is the right answer?

Our Minds Are Biased 

"'Thinking, Fast and Slow' by Daniel Kahneman is a profound exploration of the human mind, unraveling the intricacies of how we think, decide, and often misjudge.

Major New York Times bestseller Winner of the National Academy of Sciences Best Book Award in 2012 Selected by the New York Times Book Review as one of the ten best books of 2011 A Globe and Mail Best Books of the Year 2011 Title One of The Economist's 2011 Books of the Year One of The Wall Street Journal's Best Nonfiction Books of the Year 2011 2013 Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipient Kahneman's work with Amos Tversky is the subject of Michael Lewis's The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds In his mega bestseller, Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman, the renowned 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. Winner of the National Academy of Sciences Best Book Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and selected by The New York Times Book Review as one of the ten best books of 2011, Thinking, Fast and Slow is destined to be a classic.

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Daniel Kahneman (born 5 March 1934) is an Israeli-American psychologist and winner of the 2002 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, notable for his work on behavioral finance and hedonic psychology.With Amos Tversky and others, Kahneman established a cognitive basis for common human errors using heuristics and biases (Kahneman & Tversky, 1973, Kahneman, Slovic & Tversky, 1982), and developed Prospect theory (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979). He was awarded the 2002 Nobel Prize in Economics for his work in Prospect theory. Currently, he is professor emeritus of psychology at Princeton University's Department of Psychology.

Availability Heuristic

Similar ideas to Availability Heuristic

Common cognitive biases