Daniel Kahneman, 2011.
Causal thinking vs Statistical reasoning
Happiness lets us be more intuitive, more creative, letting System I take the lead. Also, we are more prone to error because of reduced vigilance.
Surprise:
When we expect something, something else happens or does not happen. Recurrence lowers the surprise effect.
Passive vs. active expectation
An event appears normal if the pattern has already been seen before.
Moses illusion:
How many animals of each kind did Moses take into the ark?
Not Moses, Noah. All are mentioned in the Old Testament, so it is not shocking.
Inference between action and sub‑consequences, like a billiard game.
Need for coherency: If two unrelated things appear on the headlines of a journal, we expect some kind of relationship between them.
associative coherence – evoked stuff
impression of causality, generated by System I, which is not reasoning about true causation.
intentional causality:
Heider and Simmel – associate triangles and circles with people.
Usually, people take the soul as the source and cause of the action.
To read: Paul Bloom, The Atlantic, 2005. An opposite view, separating physical and intentional causalities.
Example:
Ask participants to remember a few digits. Then have them read true and false sentences. With the memory task, people are better at discerning true from false. System II is engaged by the memory task; otherwise, System I stays in place and makes mistakes.
Because a person is good at some point, we assume they are good at other unverified points:
Independent judgment, error decorrelation needed.
System II:
When asked a question, it searches memory for answers and directs its attention.
System I:
Continuously monitors what is happening in the world and in the mind, generating assessments about the situation.
Basic assessments are substituted for difficult questions.
How to interact with a stranger. First, you evaluate a person’s dominance, trustworthiness, and whether they seem friendly or hostile. The shape of the face helps you infer intentions. Face reading is imperfect but can be helpful.
When speaking face‑to‑face, it is easier to understand intention than over the phone or in written form.
Ranking is easy (relative ranking); assigning a grade is harder.
Some tasks are easy, but you need to pay attention (e.g., counting syllables). Control is imprecise, and “we compute much more than we want or need”: mental shotgun.
Rely on evidence you cannot fully explain nor defend.
How happy are you these days?
vs.
How many dates did you have last month?
Alone, the first question is not easy; with context, it becomes manageable.
Likes and dislikes shape what we want to hear or perceive.
System II slows down the thinking of System I, imposing logical analysis and self‑criticism—though it should not criticize System I’s emotions. Search for information and arguments.
Small samples often produce extreme outcomes.
Random generation does not guarantee an equilibrated distribution.
For (p = 1/2), which pattern is more frequent?
Traders know about market products, etc., but they are still very bad at predicting the future—though less so than newbies.
Individuals tend to be worse, lower than average compared with traders.
Algorithms do not make errors. They always predict the same way and are rigorous.
Intuition is nothing more than recognition.
Experiments
We remember spikes and ends.
Recall interruptions as breaks in pleasurable activities.
Positive feelings
Negative feelings
Feelings depend on the immediate environment (office, people, noise). They are more focused on direct activities/events. Active experiences (e.g., sports) are better than passive ones (e.g., watching TV).
Strong recurrent thoughts sometimes dominate over direct events.
Example: People eating in front of the TV don’t appreciate the meal as much.
Salary: There is a threshold (~ $75,000 US) beyond which salary increases no longer raise happiness; this also depends on the cost of living.
Experience sampling: Instead of asking someone to write all life details at once, a device (phone) vibrates randomly during the day to prompt brief reflections, encouraging attention to the present moment.
DRM – Day Reconstruction Method
Marriage is an illusion.
Your happiness over the life course:
Goals make a large difference. People with goals progress further (e.g., higher salaries if planned).
If you don’t reach your goal, you feel more unhappy; achieving it makes you happier than average.
Focusing Illusion
Speedy answers to well‑being questions are often heuristic, not “true” judgments (e.g., you may recall a recent bad‑luck event instead of evaluating overall satisfaction).
Nothing in life is as important as you think it is when you are thinking about it.
When evaluating groups (e.g., people in a rainy country, paraplegic individuals), we may assume they are worse off, but because they are accustomed to their circumstances, they may not care as much.
Miswanting
Errors arise from affective forecasting—relying on current short‑term feelings rather than long‑term considerations.