Thinking, Fast and Slow - Daniel Kahneman

editor could do as much as Eric did. My daughter, Lenore Shoham, rallied round to help me
through the hectic final months, providing wisdom, a sharp critical eye, and many of the
sentences in the “Speaking of” sections. My wife, Anne Treisman, went through a lot and did a
lot—I would have given up long ago without her steady support, wisdom, and endless
patience.
Notes
Introduction
prone to collect too few observations: We had read a book that criticized psychologists for
using small samples, but did not explain their choices: Jacob Cohen, Statistical Power Analysis
for the Behavioral Sciences (Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 1969).
question about words: I have slightly altered the original wording, which referred to letters in
the first and third position of words.
negative view of the mind: A prominent German psychologist has been our most persistent
critic. Gerd Gigerenzer, “How to Make Cognitive Illusions Disappear,” European Review of
Social Psychology 2 (1991): 83–115. Gerd Gigerenzer, “Personal Reflections on Theory and
Psychology,” Theory & Psychology 20 (2010): 733–43. Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky,
“On the Reality of Cognitive Illusions,” Psychological Review 103 (1996): 582–91.
offered plausible alternatives: Some examples from many are Valerie F. Reyna and Farrell J.
Lloyd, “Physician Decision-Making and Cardiac Risk: Effects of Knowledge, Risk Perception,
Risk Tolerance and Fuzzy-Processing,” Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied 12
(2006): 179–95. Nicholas Epley and Thomas Gilovich, “The Anchoring-and-Adjustment
Heuristic,” Psychological Science 17 (2006): 311–18. Norbert Schwarz et al., “Ease of
Retrieval of Information: Another Look at the Availability Heuristic,” Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology 61 (1991): 195–202. Elke U. Weber et al., “Asymmetric Discounting in
Intertemporal Choice,” Psychological Science 18 (2007): 516–23. George F. Loewenstein et
al., “Risk as Feelings,” Psychological Bulletin 127 (2001): 267–86.
Nobel Prize that I received: The prize awarded in economics is named Bank of Sweden Prize
in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. It was first given in 1969. Some physical
scientists were not pleased with the addition of a Nobel Prize in social science, and the
distinctive label of the economics prize was a compromise.
prolonged practice: Herbert Simon and his students at Carnegie Mellon in the 1980s set the
foundations for our understanding of expertise. For an excellent popular introduction to the
subject, see Joshua Foer, Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering
(New York: Penguin Press, 2011). He presents work that is reviewed in more technical detail