afox98's review against another edition
2.0
The concepts in this book are fascinating, though the writing style is somewhat dry and academic. But I read five chapters, and it started getting repetitive, and I got to where I dreaded picking it up. So I'm calling uncle and moving on.
dennyabraham's review against another edition
3.0
a great book, but far too much of one for the amount of message
bansrithakkar's review against another edition
4.0
Very interesting, I appreciate the thoroughness of the research. Very dense, tedious and exhausting. I would definitely give it another go.
ferris_mx's review against another edition
5.0
This was a really great book. Things I want to remember:
1) The associative mind is really quick and powerful, but if it is biased, there isn't really anything you can do about it. The analytic mind can overpower the associative mind, but it is lazy.
2) We often answer an easier question than we are asked. We often use representation to do this. If a situation appears to be a representative of that class, we will act as though it is, disregarding the prior probabilities.
3) Framing is very important. We will take a sure win over a chance at a bigger win. But we will take a chance at a small loss over a sure loss. (Same expected value). So the way you define it is very significant.
4) We use anchoring. So once we decide the point of reference, we analyze gain and loss relative to that point.
5) We have an experiencing self, and a remembering self. The remembering self is guided by peak joy/pain and the last part of the experience. It is a terrible judge of duration.
1) The associative mind is really quick and powerful, but if it is biased, there isn't really anything you can do about it. The analytic mind can overpower the associative mind, but it is lazy.
2) We often answer an easier question than we are asked. We often use representation to do this. If a situation appears to be a representative of that class, we will act as though it is, disregarding the prior probabilities.
3) Framing is very important. We will take a sure win over a chance at a bigger win. But we will take a chance at a small loss over a sure loss. (Same expected value). So the way you define it is very significant.
4) We use anchoring. So once we decide the point of reference, we analyze gain and loss relative to that point.
5) We have an experiencing self, and a remembering self. The remembering self is guided by peak joy/pain and the last part of the experience. It is a terrible judge of duration.
dorothy_gale's review against another edition
3.0
I gave this book 3 stars because the author’s writing style (heavily academic) and length were not for me. It seemed textbook or college lecture-ish. I’ve talked to people who loved it, and the core ideas are unmistakably solid, so I do understand how it can get 4 or 5 stars.
This book was published in 2011, and it took me 10 listening days to get through it. I have read about 8 other books I’d consider psychology books, but this was the first with substantial statistics and economics angles. I chose it because I really wanted a good book on thinking and I was hoping for a mix of ‘explain how the brain works’ + practical how-to, with decision-making my key focus. This book was so long and had so much in it, it seemed as though the author was trying to document his life’s work in a single volume. It’s also not the type of book that fits an audio format well; it includes an 11-page PDF with 16 figures, and that’s hard to integrate while driving to work. He also uses MANY numerical examples and exercises, which is hard to track *safely* while driving. He does include a very good variety of examples, but they are often in case study, psychology experiment, and SAT-like scenarios that I wouldn’t necessarily classify as storytelling. The stories he does include are his journey at arriving at all his and his collaborators’ discoveries – and that just wasn’t that interesting to me. Decades-long research doesn’t occur to me as inspiring.
This concept-dense book proposes there are two main ways the brain works (hence the title), and includes several thinking errors and biases, but fails to consistently connect the main theme with the supporting details. In the audio version, his conclusion is only 13 minutes of the 20-hour book. Any recommendations get lost in the fray unless you are highlighting throughout the entire book as you go and write your own summary.
I’d assert this book is best for academics, researchers, and number lovers. getAbstract recommends this book to anyone interested in neuroscience and neuroeconomics specifically.
My key takeaways - Several definitions – too many in fact to remember so I had to go back to summaries to grab them: hindsight bias, loss aversion, endowment effect, “experiencing self” vs “remembering self,” associative activation, priming, “what you see is all there is” tendency, halo effect (which I had learned before in interview bias training), anchoring, regression to the mean, narrative fallacy, and there’s probably more. I think there are about a dozen biases total. My two REAL takeaways: (1) people need help making better judgments in their financial and life choices, and (2) an organization can operate with more methodical rationality than can the separate individuals within it.
This book was also my very first tests of the Kirkus “blue star” and Publishers Weekly “red star” ratings, and I learned that they can’t be trusted because they don’t publish the reviewers’ names or background. The reviewers could have been highly academic statisticians for all I know.
At the time of this review, ‘Thinking Fast and Slow’ has a Goodreads’ rating of 4.13 stars from 217,936 people – so clearly I’m a harsh grader – AND I suspect the vast majority read a paper version at a slower rate than I went through it.
This book was published in 2011, and it took me 10 listening days to get through it. I have read about 8 other books I’d consider psychology books, but this was the first with substantial statistics and economics angles. I chose it because I really wanted a good book on thinking and I was hoping for a mix of ‘explain how the brain works’ + practical how-to, with decision-making my key focus. This book was so long and had so much in it, it seemed as though the author was trying to document his life’s work in a single volume. It’s also not the type of book that fits an audio format well; it includes an 11-page PDF with 16 figures, and that’s hard to integrate while driving to work. He also uses MANY numerical examples and exercises, which is hard to track *safely* while driving. He does include a very good variety of examples, but they are often in case study, psychology experiment, and SAT-like scenarios that I wouldn’t necessarily classify as storytelling. The stories he does include are his journey at arriving at all his and his collaborators’ discoveries – and that just wasn’t that interesting to me. Decades-long research doesn’t occur to me as inspiring.
This concept-dense book proposes there are two main ways the brain works (hence the title), and includes several thinking errors and biases, but fails to consistently connect the main theme with the supporting details. In the audio version, his conclusion is only 13 minutes of the 20-hour book. Any recommendations get lost in the fray unless you are highlighting throughout the entire book as you go and write your own summary.
I’d assert this book is best for academics, researchers, and number lovers. getAbstract recommends this book to anyone interested in neuroscience and neuroeconomics specifically.
My key takeaways - Several definitions – too many in fact to remember so I had to go back to summaries to grab them: hindsight bias, loss aversion, endowment effect, “experiencing self” vs “remembering self,” associative activation, priming, “what you see is all there is” tendency, halo effect (which I had learned before in interview bias training), anchoring, regression to the mean, narrative fallacy, and there’s probably more. I think there are about a dozen biases total. My two REAL takeaways: (1) people need help making better judgments in their financial and life choices, and (2) an organization can operate with more methodical rationality than can the separate individuals within it.
This book was also my very first tests of the Kirkus “blue star” and Publishers Weekly “red star” ratings, and I learned that they can’t be trusted because they don’t publish the reviewers’ names or background. The reviewers could have been highly academic statisticians for all I know.
At the time of this review, ‘Thinking Fast and Slow’ has a Goodreads’ rating of 4.13 stars from 217,936 people – so clearly I’m a harsh grader – AND I suspect the vast majority read a paper version at a slower rate than I went through it.
andergraphen's review against another edition
5.0
Interessantissimo saggio sulla capacità della nostra mente di cadere trappola di molteplici illusioni cognitive con tantissimi esempi che aiutano a capire concetti molto complessi. Un'opera che ha risvolti importanti in tantissimi campi soprattutto economici. 9
sillypunk's review against another edition
5.0
Terrifying but good: https://blogendorff.ghost.io/book-review-thinking-fast-and-slow/
holdenn93's review against another edition
5.0
Thinking, Fast and Slow offers a fascinating insight to the brain's ability to reason, combining psychology and mathematical logic to tackle a complex subject, which carefully explores the multifaceted algorithms the brain undergoes when we make simple or complicated decisions or solve problems, while delving into how even skilled statisticians and problem solvers can fall prey to the mind's predisposition to biases and fallacies.