Kahneman's two thinking systems

Summary

As all decision-making emerges from the uncertainty, so does project management decisions. When trying to describing on the dynamics when assessing risk and reward, the lack of understanding the underlying rationale comes to mind. Daniel Kahneman, an Israelian-American Nobel prize winning psychologist, tries to elaborate the existing literature on uncertainties in decision-making, by introducing a new scope.

This new scope takes its starting point in two systems used when evaluating a decision, system 1 and system 2.

System 1 or the fast thinking system is defined by quick responses, automation and irrational thinking.

System 2 or the slow thinking system is defined by thought through repsones and rational thinking.

Kahneman describes the two systems as interdependent. System 2 is a slave to system 1 due to the cognitive biases our everyday experiences and impressions have imprinted in the unconscious.

When applying Kahneman's two system for project management it can be used to accommodate and explain uncertainty in decision-making. This could yield a better foundation to understand systematic errors and reveal flaws in a project. The development of the two systems also acknowledge the challenge of altering these systematic errors, as the system 2 mainly is used for decision-making in which system 1 can't handle the choice.

Kahneman also argues that system 2 is brought to work when some decision is out of scope for system 1. This is supported by the estimation that system 1 is used for approx. 98 % of our decisions and system 2 is only used for approx. 2 %[1]. This uneven balance implies that by this logic, humans are irrational by nature and that system 1 is used for not important decisions.

Kahneman's theory also have some limitations as the two thinking system to some extend is unsupported or at least not well documented. This was made clear as the errors in Kahneman's early work of the theory, with small samplesize and “watching-eyes effect” should be taking into consideration when using the systems for decision-making [2].

Big idea

Application: - HabitsLink title - shortcut decisions - Heavy for the brain in system 2

Limitations: - simplification. - reflections in the subconscious. -

Annotated bibliography