To remind System 1 to stay objective, to resist jumping to conclusions, and to enlist the evaluative skills of System 2, Kahneman coined the abbreviation, “WYSIATI,” what you see is all there is. The problem with all these examples is that our intuitive judgments are impulsive, not clearly thought through, or critically examined. Likewise, negative adjectives listed early colors later positive adjectives. A list of positive adjectives describing a person influences how we interpret negative adjectives that come later in the list.

The first to speak their opinion in a meeting can “prime” others’ opinions. Good first impressions tend to positively color later negative impressions and conversely, negative first impressions can negatively color later positive impressions. The warm emotion we feel toward a person, place, or thing predisposes us to like everything about that person, place, or thing. “This is the tendency to like or dislike everything about a person-including things you have not observed,” (page 82). Potential for error? We are prone to over-estimate the probability of unlikely events (irrational fears) and accept uncritically every suggestion (credulity). “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,” (page 81). When System 1 makes a mistake System 2 jumps in to slow us down and consider alternative explanations. It rarely considers other interpretations. System 1 fills in ambiguity with automatic guesses and interpretations that fit our stories. Jumping to conclusions is risky when the situation is unfamiliar, the stakes are high, and there is no time to collect more information,” (page 79). “Jumping to conclusions is efficient if the conclusions are likely to be correct and the costs of an occasional mistake acceptable, and if the jump saves much time and effort. This is the tendency to search for and find confirming evidence for a belief while overlooking counter examples. Potential for error? We posit intention and agency where none exists, we confuse causality with correlation, and we make more out of coincidences than is statistically warranted.ĬHAPTER SEVEN: A MACHINE FOR JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS “Your mind is ready and even eager to identify agents, assign them personality traits and specific intentions, and view their actions as expressing individual propensities,” (page 76). Often those explanations involve 1) assuming intention, “It was meant to happen,” 2) causality, “They’re homeless because they’re lazy,” or 3) interpreting providence, “There’s a divine purpose in everything.” “We are evidently ready from birth to have impressions of causality, which do not depend on reasoning about patterns of causation,” (page 76). We say, “Everything happens for a purpose,” “God did it,” “That person acted out of character,” or “That was so weird it can’t be random chance.” Abnormalities, anomalies, and incongruities in daily living beg for coherent explanations. To fit those surprises into our world we tell ourselves new stories to make them fit.

Things that don’t occur as expected take us by surprise. The more these events fit into our stories the more normal they seem. We make associations between events, circumstances, and regular occurrences. To make sense of the world we tell ourselves stories about what’s going on. Heuristic #3: COHERENT STORIES (ASSOCIATIVE COHERENCE). Things influence our judgment, attitude, and behavior that we are not even aware of.ĬHAPTER SIX: NORMS, SURPRISES, AND CAUSES Potential for error? We are not objective rational thinkers. We can not only feel our way into behavior, we can behave our way into feelings. It is true: if we behave in certain ways our thoughts and emotions will eventually catch up. People asked to smile find jokes funnier people asked to frown find disturbing pictures more disturbing. And people who are asked to walk slower will more easily recognize words related to old age. People reading about the elderly will unconsciously walk slower. These subtle influences also affect behavior, “the ideomotor effect,” (page 53). Things outside of our conscious awareness can influence how we think. If we’ve been talking about food, we’ll fill in the blank SO_P with a U, but if we’ve been talking about cleanliness, we’ll fill in the blank SO_P with an A. Conscious and subconscious exposure to an idea “primes” us to think about an associated idea.

Thinking fast and slow