Who You Are
nytimes.com
Who You Are
1–10 of 38 posts
Re: Who You Are
#2"Most of our own thinking is below awareness."
Indeed!. Minsky once said that consciousness is the brain's debug trace.
Re: Who You Are
#3"Most of our own thinking is below awareness." Indeed!. Minsky once said that consciousness is the brain's debug trace.
Have been reading a very interesting book on related subject -
On Being Certain - Robert A. Burton
Re: Who You Are
#4Kahneman and Tversky are legends in psychology, but they didn't change the fundamental way we view ourselves. The notion of humans as super rational utility maximisers was entirely an economic model, and it was that they attacked. It was well known (for over twenty years before their seminal 1974 science paper) that humans were poor at probability and utility judgments.
What they did do, was force the economic profession to face up (somewhat) to these issues, and their contribution to loss aversion and prospect theory more generally, is a significant advance.
That being said, their dual process models are about as predictive as those of Freud (which is to say, not at all). its currently a really active phase of research, so I suppose I can thank them for making it easier for me to get funding.
They also did not invent priming, though they made heavy use of it. Likewise framing effects were well known before them, going back at least to Asch 1951 study of conformity in judgements of line length.
To summate, Kahneman is an amazing scientist, but this reporter does not appear to know much about what he is talking about.
Re: Who You Are
#5It definitely makes a lot of sense. Just try speaking with someone about politics or religion. Even if you conclusively prove that the other persons views are not based in fact or reason they will refuse to acknowledge you are right and then usually get mad and stop talking to you. Humans are most certainly not 'rational beings'. Our thinking is constantly biased by our formative experiences and our environment.
Re: Who You Are
#6Kahneman and Tversky are legends in psychology, but they didn't change the fundamental way we view ourselves. The notion of humans as super rational utility maximisers was entirely an economic model, and it was that they attacked. It was well known (for over twenty years before their seminal 1974 science paper) that humans were poor at probability and utility judgments. What they did do, was force the economic profes…
That is a common theme with David Brooks. I'm not trying to be ad-hominem, just noticing a pattern.
Re: Who You Are
#7Yet another entry in the long list of pop psychology books. It seems like they all gear up on one or two navel-gazing insights that just about anybody can intuitively identify with (You have a slow, rational side and a fast, emotional side! Doesn't that explain everything?) and then, they try to run as far as they can with the implications of this overly dumbed-down hypothesis. Carefully cherry-picked statistics from the millions of social phenomena and psychological experiments taking place around the world are sprinkled into the narrative to keep you engaged. (side rant: all of which have their methodological details conveniently obscured to prevent your critical thinking from kicking in, and you are extremely lucky if the sample size is provided, much less any attempt at a p-value or other discussion of statistical significance. Nope, it's usually just "Amazingly enough, 89% of ...")
Example: the silly birdie vs. bogie data presented in this little article. Great, people want birdies more than they don't want bogies, and perhaps it ties back into some aspect of your central hypothesis. But how many other oversimplified statements about human nature could I "prove" with this example? Probably hundreds. Maybe it's a completely rational strategy on the part of the golfer, since their experience has taught them that the (emotional|physical|mental) effort required to sink a birdie putt is not as productive in the long-term as at least making par on every hole. That kind of alternative thinking doesn't matter though, so we simply move to the next experiment and supportive conclusion. Repeat ad infinitum, until we've fulfilled the length requirement for a novel.
No, I did not enjoy Freakonomics (can you tell?).
Re: Who You Are
#8[deleted]
Re: Who You Are
#9Yet another entry in the long list of pop psychology books. It seems like they all gear up on one or two navel-gazing insights that just about anybody can intuitively identify with (You have a slow, rational side and a fast, emotional side! Doesn't that explain everything?) and then, they try to run as far as they can with the implications of this overly dumbed-down hypothesis. Carefully cherry-picked statistics from…
I agree with you but wonder if the article was like that from Daniel Kahneman himself or the journalist. Having dealt with the later I really understand how good at bending what you said they are.
Also, if Daniel was a pop scientist, would he be given nobel prize in his field? Yes, Obama comes to mind, but still.
Re: Who You Are
#10Kahneman and Tversky are legends in psychology, but they didn't change the fundamental way we view ourselves. The notion of humans as super rational utility maximisers was entirely an economic model, and it was that they attacked. It was well known (for over twenty years before their seminal 1974 science paper) that humans were poor at probability and utility judgments. What they did do, was force the economic profes…
What are the best books available on the subject of predicting human behavior, if you don't mind me asking? Advanced or technical are fine, scientific journals would be over my comprehension, I'm afraid.