Daniel Kahneman is an Israeli-American psychologist who won the Nobel Prize in Economics for his work on decision-making. His 2011 book Thinking, Fast and Slow summarised five decades of research on how people actually make decisions — and proved that we are far less rational than we assume.
Who is Daniel Kahneman?
Daniel Kahneman spent his career studying judgement and decision-making, often in collaboration with the psychologist Amos Tversky. Together they developed prospect theory, which explains why people make irrational choices about risk and loss. His writing takes difficult research and makes it readable, without pretending that knowing about biases makes you immune to them.
Daniel Kahneman’s books
- Thinking, Fast and Slow — his defining book on how the mind makes decisions
Where should you start?
Start with Thinking, Fast and Slow. It is his only book for a general audience and still the best account of his research.
Key ideas in Daniel Kahneman’s work
- System 1 and System 2 — fast intuition and slow reasoning, and how they fight for control
- Loss aversion — losses hurt roughly twice as much as equivalent gains feel good
- Anchoring — irrelevant numbers still influence what we are willing to pay
- The planning fallacy — we consistently underestimate how long things will take
Frequently asked questions
What is Daniel Kahneman best known for?
Daniel Kahneman is best known for Thinking, Fast and Slow, a summary of decades of research that won him the Nobel Prize in Economics.
Should I read Thinking, Fast and Slow first?
Yes. It is his only book for general readers and the most complete account of his work.
