“Thinking”

This is the TTT Research Lab page on how we think. Unlike other Research Lab pages, this is free, as it’s an important reference point for how we debate football.

Daniel Kahneman Answers Your Questions for Freakonomics

Two weeks ago, we solicited your questions for Princeton psychology professor and Nobel laureate  Daniel Kahneman, whose new book is called Thinking, Fast and Slow. You responded by asking 45 questions. Kahneman has answered 22 of them in one of the more in-depth and wide-ranging Q&A’s we’ve run recently. It’s a great read. As always, thanks for your questions, and thanks to Daniel Kahneman for taking the time to answer so many of them.

Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow – Research Webpage

I mentioned in an earlier post Daniel Kahneman’s excellent book titled “Thinking, Fast and Slow“. As Daniel Engber from the Slate Magazine so eloquently describes, “In the course of 418 pages, Kahneman designates no fewer than three biases (confirmation, hindsight, outcome), 12 effects (halo, framing, Florida, Lady Macbeth, etc.), four fallacies (sunk-cost, narrative, planning, conjunction), six illusions (focusing, control, Moses, validity, skill, truth), two neglects (denominator, duration) and three heuristics (mood, affect, availability)”.

I was intending, initially, to devote some space to elaborating on these biases, effects, fallacies, neglects and heuristics. Having done dome further research I have identified other good resources that have already gone through the process of defining and elaborating on these terms. I will therefore list these links below to make it easier for you to do your own reading on the specific terms should you wish to explore this topic further.

The 3 Biases:

  1. The Confirmation Bias
  2. The Hindsight Bias
  3. The Outcome Bias

The 12 Effects:

  1. The Halo Effect
  2. The Framing Effect
  3. The Florida Effect
  4. The Lady Macbeth Effect
  5. The Endowment Effect
  6. The Priming Effect
  7. The ideomotor  Effect
  8. The Mere Exposure Effect
  9. The Anchoring Effect
  10. The Regression Effect
  11. The Above-Average Effect
  12. The Possibility Effect
  13. The Certainty Effect
  14. The Disposition Effect
  15. The Framing Effect

The 4 Fallacies:

  1. The Sunk-Cost Fallacy
  2. The Narrative Fallacy
  3. The Planning Fallacy
  4. The Conjunction Fallacy

The 6 Illusions:

  1. The Focusing Illusion
  2. The Control Illusion
  3. The Moses Illusion
  4. The Validity Illusion
  5. The Skill Illusion
  6. The Truth Illusion

The 2 Neglects:

  1. The Denominator Neglect
  2. The Duration Neglect

How do we really make decisions? By Toby Macdonald

With every decision you take, every judgement you make, there is a battle in your mind – a battle between intuition and logic. And the intuitive part of your mind is a lot more powerful than you may think. Most of us like to think that we are capable of making rational decisions. We may at times rely on our gut instinct, but if necessary we can call on our powers of reason to arrive at a logical decision.

We like to think that our beliefs, judgements and opinions are based on solid reasoning. But we may have to think again. Prof Daniel Kahneman, from Princeton University, started a revolution in our understanding of the human mind. It’s a revolution that led to him winning a Nobel Prize. His insight into the way our minds work springs from the mistakes that we make. Not random mistakes, but systematic errors that we all make, all the time, without realising.