Thinking Fast and Slow is my favorite social psychology book. It's a great look at how our minds work (or don't work) in specific situations. It's a friendly reminder of how un-logical we are as humans. Daniel Kahneman does a great job of presenting his evidence and arguments. He also addresses the arguments of his opponents to better defend his logic.
Key Takeaways
Memorable Quotes
Rating: 10/10
If you want to understand the world and the people in it, this is a must read. Psychology is fascinating to me, and this book continue to teach me things about human nature. Anyone can find a relevant tidbit in this book to help them live their life better. I always recommend this to other product managers as a resource to help them manage their teams.
Key Takeaways
- Our brain has two parts, called "System 1" and "System 2" used for different types of thinking.
- System 1 is the subconscious, intuitive, fast, and low energy thinking system. It is always at work.
- System 2 is the conscious, logical, slow, and high energy thinking system. It only works when we're focused and have enough energy to engage it.
- Our intuitions are often wrong about many things. In particular, math and statistics cause problems for System 1.
- There are many biases that arise from System 1. Confirmation Bias may be one you've heard of.
- Even understanding the effects of these biases does not make you immune to them.
Memorable Quotes
- Nothing in life is as important as you think it is, while you are thinking about it.
- Our comforting conviction that the world makes sense rests on a secure foundation: our almost unlimited ability to ignore our ignorance.
- Intelligence is not only the ability to reason; it is also the ability to find relevant material in memory and to deploy attention when needed.
- A general “law of least effort” applies to cognitive as well as physical exertion. The law asserts that if there are several ways of achieving the same goal, people will eventually gravitate to the least demanding course of action. In the economy of action, effort is a cost, and the acquisition of skill is driven by the balance of benefits and costs. Laziness is built deep into our nature.
- A reliable way of making people believe in falsehoods is frequent repetition, because familiarity is not easily distinguished from truth.
- This is the essence of intuitive heuristics: when faced with a difficult question, we often answer an easier one instead, usually without noticing the substitution.
- We are prone to overestimate how much we understand about the world and to underestimate the role of chance in events.
- We can be blind to the obvious, and we are also blind to our blindness.
Rating: 10/10
If you want to understand the world and the people in it, this is a must read. Psychology is fascinating to me, and this book continue to teach me things about human nature. Anyone can find a relevant tidbit in this book to help them live their life better. I always recommend this to other product managers as a resource to help them manage their teams.