Quotes from Daniel Kahneman

One thing we have lost, that we had in the past, is a sense of progress, that things are getting better. There is a sense of volatility, but not of progress.

Nobody would say, 'I'm voting for this guy because he's got the stronger chin,' but that, in fact, is partly what happens.

When people talk of the economy being strong, they don't seem to feel that they, too, are better off.

If people are failing, they look inept. If people are succeeding, they look strong and good and competent. That's the 'halo effect.' Your first impression of a thing sets up your subsequent beliefs. If the company looks inept to you, you may assume everything else they do is inept.

In essence, the optimistic style involves taking credit for successes but little blame for failures.

regression to the mean has an explanation but does not have a cause.

Because adherence to standard operating procedures is difficult to second-guess, decision makers who expect to have their decisions scrutinized with hindsight are driven to bureaucratic solutions—and to an extreme reluctance to take risks.

Caring for people often takes the form of concern for the quality of their stories, not for their feelings.

One of the significant discoveries of cognitive psychologists in recent decades is that switching from one task to another is effortful, especially under time pressure.

My experience is that I can think while strolling but cannot engage in mental work that imposes a heavy load on short-term memory.

Whether professionals have a chance to develop intuitive expertise depends essentially on the quality and speed of feedback, as well as on sufficient opportunity to practice.

We are often confident even when we are wrong, and an objective observer is more likely to detect our errors than we are.

This should not come as a surprise: overly optimistic forecasts of the outcome of projects are found everywhere. Amos and I coined the term planning fallacy to describe plans and forecasts that are unrealistically close to best-case scenarios could be improved by consulting the statistics of similar cases Examples of the planning fallacy abound in the experiences of individuals, governments, and businesses.

Intuitive predictions need to be corrected because they are not regressive and therefore are biased.

Whenever we can replace human judgment by a formula, we should at least consider it.

So this is my aim for watercooler conversations: improve the ability to identify and understand errors of judgment and choice, in others and eventually in ourselves, by providing a richer and more precise language to discuss them. In at least some cases, an accurate diagnosis may suggest an intervention to limit the damage that bad judgments and choices often cause.

Widespread fears, even if they are unreasonable, should not be ignored by policy makers. Rational or not, fear is painful and debilitating, and policy makers must endeavor to protect the public from fear, not only from real dangers.

Scientists in diverse disciplines were quick to adopt the least squares method. Over two centuries later, it remains the standard way to evaluate errors wherever achieving accuracy is the goal.

controlling thoughts and behaviors is one of the tasks that System 2 performs.

The evidence suggests that optimism is widespread, stubborn, and costly.

When Vul and Pashler let three weeks pass before asking their subjects the same question again, the benefit rose to one-third the value of a second opinion.

all variants of voluntary effort—cognitive, emotional, or physical—draw at least partly on a shared pool of mental energy.

When the driver of a car is overtaking a truck on a narrow road, for example, adult passengers quite sensibly stop talking.

Fast thinking includes both variants of intuitive thought—the expert and the heuristic