One of my favorite rules of thumb came from the Nichomachean Ethics where Aristotle said that in considering how much you should pay for a service rendered, you should consider how much it was worth to you before it was accomplished. Not sure it's a documented bias, but it should be: the universal tendency to underappreciate what we already have.
This explains why Kahneman's book "Thinking, Fast and Slow" was such a hit. The easiest way to write a bestselling book is to tell people what they've heard a hundred times before.
It does call into question the feasibility of the book's objective of correcting human biases and cognitive errors. We've been trying to do that for 2500 years.
Both points are actually covered in the book, if I recall correctly. Kahneman writes something along the lines of Tversky or him remarking to the other that they were "just re-discovering things that their grandmother used to tell them."
Kahneman later writes that the only way to avoid cognitive biases that he's seen is to know them and be vigilant for them. And even that doesn't work a good deal of the time. I remember that passage being a very sobering part of the book.
I would say that the book is Kahneman's attempt to actually add to that 2500 year effort by making the observations more formalized, but available to a wider audience.
If you look ahead to a future age, and consider the state of literature after the printing press, which never rests, has filled huge buildings with books, you will find again a twofold division of labor. Some will not do very much reading, but will instead devote themselves to investigations which will be new, or which they will believe to be new (for if we are even now ignorant of a part of what is contained in so many volumes published in all sorts of languages, they will know still less of what is contained in those same books, augmented as they will be by a hundred—a thousand—times as many more).
We don't know how much worse it might be without any attempts, and how much worse it can get when they cease.
> We've been trying to do that for 2500 years.
Who is "we" though? It's never everybody, right? So all this shows is that the few can't pick up the slack for everybody. Not everybody can be intelligent, but everybody can strive for more intellectual integrity than they currently have. That was true "then", and it will stay true always until the failure to follow through did us in.
It could that biases are essential for survival of society as whole. Something that survived for sure for at least 2500 years cannot be just simple error of judgement.
Yes, Kahneman and Tversky are repeating insights Plato had 2500 years ago. But what they added was experimental verification that is helping persuade economists who have long mistakenly believed that human beings are far more rational than they really are.
Not sure why you're getting downvoted. I have a huge respect for the enduring legacy of Greek philosophy, and I too thought links in this article were extremely tenuous, and smacked of whatever the fallacy of appealing to ancient wisdom is called. Anyone who's read Plato's dialogues will find that one of their enduring hallmarks is how even the most intelligent and formidable interlocutors are eventually compelled at least to admit the weakness of their arguments within the course of a conversation, if not change their mind to the more persuasive character's (often Socrates') point of view on some profound subjects. It's actually a beautiful and instructive aspect of the literature, but it's an idealized progression of thought among well-educated men - not a realistic portrayal of the average person's psychological progression.
[+] [-] samirillian|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ams6110|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] schoen|8 years ago|reply
Edit: actually, I'm not clear on the difference between the endowment effect and loss aversion.
[+] [-] mrxd|8 years ago|reply
It does call into question the feasibility of the book's objective of correcting human biases and cognitive errors. We've been trying to do that for 2500 years.
[+] [-] senthil_rajasek|8 years ago|reply
He may have said what we've heard repeatedly but also backed it up with actual research.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prospect_theory
[+] [-] justaguyonline|8 years ago|reply
Kahneman later writes that the only way to avoid cognitive biases that he's seen is to know them and be vigilant for them. And even that doesn't work a good deal of the time. I remember that passage being a very sobering part of the book.
I would say that the book is Kahneman's attempt to actually add to that 2500 year effort by making the observations more formalized, but available to a wider audience.
[+] [-] dredmorbius|8 years ago|reply
-- Denis Diderot, 1755
http://www.historyofinformation.com/expanded.php?id=2877
[+] [-] wordupmaking|8 years ago|reply
> We've been trying to do that for 2500 years.
Who is "we" though? It's never everybody, right? So all this shows is that the few can't pick up the slack for everybody. Not everybody can be intelligent, but everybody can strive for more intellectual integrity than they currently have. That was true "then", and it will stay true always until the failure to follow through did us in.
[+] [-] _0w8t|8 years ago|reply
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