Quotes About Decision-making

judgments of similarity and probability are not constrained by the same logical rules. It is entirely acceptable for judgments of similarity to be unaffected by base rates and also by the possibility that the description was inaccurate, but anyone who ignores base rates and the quality of evidence in probability assessments will certainly make mistakes.

System 1 does not keep track of alternatives that it rejects, or even of the fact that there were alternatives.

you should know that correcting your intuitions may complicate your life.

the strong conclusion that simple mechanical rules were generally superior to human judgment

sympathy we would feel for the patient would not be under our control; it would arise from System 1.

A few lucky gambles can crown a reckless leader with a halo of prescience and boldness.

System 2 is much too slow and inefficient to serve as a substitute for System 1 in making routine decisions. The best we can do is a compromise: learn to recognize situations in which mistakes are likely and try harder to avoid significant mistakes when the stakes are high.

proper way to elicit information from a group is not by starting with a public discussion but by confidentially collecting each person's judgment.

Relying on causal thinking about a single case is a source of predictable errors. Taking the statistical view, which we will also call the outside view, is a way to avoid these errors.

The technical definition of heuristic is a simple procedure that helps find adequate, though often imperfect, answers to difficult questions.

The moral is significant: when System 2 is otherwise engaged, we will believe almost anything. System 1 is gullible and biased to believe, System 2 is in charge of doubting and unbelieving, but System 2 is sometimes busy, and often lazy. Indeed

Errors are bound to occur when a judgment of similarity is substituted for a judgment of probability

They keep making the same mistake: predicting rare events from weak evidence. When the evidence is weak, one should stick with the base rates.

judgment, there is noise—and more of it than we think.

Thoughts of any aspect of life are more likely to be salient if a contrasting alternative is highly available.

The dominance of conclusions over arguments is most pronounced where emotions are involved.

The laziness of System 2 is an important fact of life, and the observation that representativeness can block the application of an obvious logical rule is also of some interest.

If you consider how much you should pay for a house, you will be influenced by the asking price. The same house will appear more valuable if its listing price is high than if it is low, even if you are determined to resist the influence of this number;

People who are cognitively busy are also more likely to make selfish choices, use sexist language, and make superficial judgments in social situations. Memorizing

we quickly realized that we were just as risk seeking in the domain of losses as we were risk averse in the domain of gains. We were not the first to observe risk seeking with negative prospects—at least two authors had reported that fact, but they had not made much of it. However, we were fortunate to have a framework that made the finding of risk seeking easy to interpret, and that was a milestone in our thinking. Indeed, we identified two reasons for this effect.

shed new light on the planning fallacy

for System 1 in making routine decisions. The best we can do is a compromise: learn to recognize situations in which mistakes are likely and try harder to avoid significant mistakes when the stakes are high. The premise of this book is that it is easier to recognize other people's mistakes than our own.

This example highlights two aspects of choice that the standard model of indifference curves does not predict. First, tastes are not fixed; they vary with the reference point. Second, the disadvantages of a change loom larger than its advantages, inducing a bias that favors the status quo.

Constantly questioning our own thinking would be impossibly tedious, and System 2 is much too slow and inefficient to serve as a substitute for System 1 in making routine decisions. The best we can do is a compromise: learn to recognize situations in which mistakes are likely and try harder to avoid significant mistakes when the stakes are high. The premise of this book is that it is easier to recognize other people's mistakes than our own.