Historical Figure
Daniel Kahneman
1934–2024
Israeli-American psychologist and economist (1934–2024)
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Biography
Daniel Kahneman was an Israeli-American psychologist best known for his work on the psychology of judgment and decision-making as well as behavioral economics, for which he was awarded the 2002 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences together with Vernon L. Smith. Kahneman's published empirical findings challenge the assumption of human rationality prevailing in modern economic theory. Kahneman became known as the "grandfather of behavioral economics."
In Their Own Words (5)
It is the of the information that matters for a good story, not its completeness. Indeed, you will often find that knowing little makes it easier to fit everything you know into a coherent pattern.
Ch. 7, "A machine for jumping to conclusions" p. 87. , 2011
No one ever made a decision because of a number. They need a story.
Michael Lewis. "The Undoing Project: A Friendship that Changed the World". Penguin, 2016 (ISBN 9780141983035). , 2016
There is a deep gap between our thinking about statistics and our thinking about individual cases.
Ch. 15, "Causes trump statistics" p. 174. , 2011
He's taking an inside view. He should forget about his own case and look for what happened in other cases.
Ch. 23, "The outside view" p. 254. , 2011
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.
Ch. 3, "The lazy controller" p. 46. , 2011
Timeline
The story of Daniel Kahneman, told in moments.
Completed his Ph.D. in psychology at Berkeley, then returned to Israel. He taught at Hebrew University, where he met psychologist Amos Tversky. Their partnership lasted decades and rewrote economics.
Published prospect theory with Tversky. The paper demonstrated that people fear losses roughly twice as much as they value equivalent gains. It became the most cited paper in economics.
Won the Nobel Prize in Economics, the first psychologist to do so. Tversky had died six years earlier and couldn't share the award. Kahneman said he thought of it as theirs.
Published Thinking, Fast and Slow, which sold over two million copies. The book described two systems of thought: fast intuition and slow deliberation.
Died at 90. He had spent his career proving how badly people reason about risk, probability, and happiness.
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