Thinking, Fast and Slow

Описание: Thinking, Fast and Slow is a book by a psychologist named Daniel Kahneman. He spent many years studying how people make choices. The book explains how our mind works in two very different ways. It also shows common mistakes we make when we think, choose, and judge. These mistakes are not only for “other people.” Almost everyone makes them, even smart experts.

Kahneman says we have two thinking systems.
System 1 is fast. It works automatically. It helps you read simple words, know that 2 + 2 = 4, or jump back when a car rushes toward you. It uses feelings, habits, and quick guesses. You do not feel it working; it just happens.
System 2 is slow. It wakes up when you solve a hard math problem, plan a trip, or check a long form. It takes effort. You feel it as “thinking hard.” System 2 can follow rules and logic, but it gets tired and lazy. Because of this, System 1 often leads, even when it should not.

Fast thinking is useful, but it also brings biases, which are repeated mistakes in how we think. One bias is called anchoring. When you hear a number first, that number pulls your later guess. For example, if a store shows “Was ₹2,000, now ₹1,200,” the old price makes the new price seem better, even if ₹1,200 is still high. Your mind “anchors” on the first number. Another bias is the availability rule. We judge how likely something is by how easily we remember examples. If you see a plane crash on the news, you may feel that flying is very unsafe, even though crashes are rare. The picture in your mind feels stronger than the real odds.

Kahneman also talks about the representativeness rule. We often judge by how much something “looks like” a story in our head. For example, if someone is quiet and loves books, we may quickly think, “They must be a librarian,” and forget to ask, “How many librarians are there compared to other jobs?” We ignore base rates, which means the real share of each group in the world. This leads to wrong guesses. Our fast mind likes neat stories more than messy numbers.

A big part of the book is about risk, gains, and losses. Kahneman helped create prospect theory, which explains how people choose when facing bets. The key idea is loss aversion. Losing ₹100 hurts more than winning ₹100 feels good. Because of this, people often avoid fair bets. We hold on to bad stocks because we do not want to “lock in” a loss. How a choice is framed also matters. If a doctor says, “90 out of 100 people live,” the treatment sounds safer than if they say, “10 out of 100 people die,” even though the numbers are the same. Our fast mind reacts to the frame, not to the math.

The book also shows how we are often too sure of ourselves. This is called overconfidence. We create neat stories about the past and think we “knew it all along.” This is hindsight bias. After an event, we forget how unsure we really were. We also trust our guesses about the future too much. For example, when planning a big project, people often think, “We can finish it in six months.” They ignore delays, problems, and past projects that took much longer. This is the planning fallacy. Even when they know that similar work took a year before, their mind says, “This time will be different,” without good reasons.

Another idea is regression to the mean. When a result is very high or very low, the next one is likely to be closer to average. For example, a student who scores extremely high on one test will often score a bit lower next time, and a very low score will often be followed by a higher one. People make up stories to explain this change. They might say, “My strict talk helped,” or “My praise made them lazy,” when really it is just a natural move back toward the middle.

Kahneman does not say we can become perfect thinkers. But he gives hints to do better. We can notice when a choice is important, has risks, or involves numbers. In those times, we should invite System 2 to help. We can slow down, write things down, and check base rates and data. We can ask, “Am I just going with my first feeling? Am I being pushed by an anchor? Is this only easy to recall, or is it actually common?” We can listen to people who disagree with us and question stories that feel too neat.

In short, the book shows that our mind is powerful but not always wise. Fast thinking helps us live each day, but it also tricks us in steady, predictable ways. Slow thinking is harder, but it can catch some of these errors when we choose to use it. By knowing how these two systems work, we can make better choices with money, time, work, and even with other people.