Thinking fast and slow Flashcards
System 1: Fast Thinking
Weaknesses : Prone to biases, errors, and overconfidence because it relies on shortcuts (heuristics).
System 2: Slow Thinking
Weaknesses : Requires significant mental energy and can be lazy or avoidant, often deferring to System 1.
Heuristics
Mental shortcuts that System 1 uses to make quick decisions.
Biases
Systematic errors that arise from relying on these shortcuts.
Anchoring Effect
People rely too heavily on the first piece of information they encounter (the “anchor”) when making decisions.
Availability Heuristic
Judging the likelihood of events based on how easily examples come to mind (e.g., fearing plane crashes after hearing about one in the news).
Representativeness Heuristic
Making judgments based on stereotypes or resemblance rather than statistical likelihood.
Overconfidence
People often trust their intuitions (System 1) too much, even when they are wrong.
Cognitive Ease
When things feel familiar or easy to process, we tend to believe them more readily, even if they’re false.
Loss Aversion
People feel the pain of losses more strongly than the pleasure of equivalent gains.
Framing Effects
The way choices are presented (framed) significantly influences decisions. For example, people prefer a “90% survival rate” over a “10% mortality rate,” even though they mean the same thing.
Experiencing Self
Lives in the present and feels pain or pleasure moment by moment.
Remembering Self
Reflects on past experiences and forms memories, often influenced by peaks and endings.
Peak-End Rule
People judge experiences based on their most intense moments (peaks) and how they ended, not the overall duration or average quality.
Duration Neglect
The length of an experience has little impact on how it is remembered.
Halo Effect
Positive impressions in one area influence judgments in unrelated areas (e.g., assuming someone who is physically attractive is also intelligent).
Confirmation Bias
Favoring information that confirms preexisting beliefs while ignoring contradictory evidence.
Regression to the Mean
Extreme outcomes tend to move closer to the average over time, but people often misinterpret this as a causal effect.
WYSIATI (What You See Is All There Is)
System 1 tends to jump to conclusions based on limited information, ignoring what it doesn’t know. This leads to overconfidence and flawed reasoning.
