I am enjoying Kahneman’s book, “Thinking Fast and Slow.” The Tom W question and the Linda Problem are two intriguing experiments. I learned about how people are quick to ignore base rates, personal doubts and the validity of the description and instead, make assumptions and rely on stereotypes. It is interesting how lazySystem 2 can be. It often decides that applying knowledge takes too much effort! System 1 thinking makes quick judgments, applies stereotypes and succumbs to fallacies. System 1 convinces System 2 that its information is not valuable and will take too much effort to confirm or apply further knowledge. System 2 is not impressively alert. It may “know” but does not always “apply.” Knowing this about the two systems, how can educators encourage students to be aware of their own “lazy thinking?” What are good activities to implement in a curriculum that encourages thinking slow?
“System 2 is therefore susceptible to the biasing influence of anchors that make some information easier to retrieve. System 2 has no control over the effect and no knowledge of it.” My question is: WHY doesn’t System 2 have control over the effect? I think that anchoring and priming effects are interestingly powerful. Priming effect influences thoughts and behavior through stimuli which we pay no attention to at all. Our thoughts and behaviors are influenced by our thoughts and behaviors of the moment. Interesting: We might be aware of the anchor, but often not aware of how it guides and constrains your thinking because you cannot imagine how you would have thought if the anchor had been different or absent. It can be draining to use System 2 to maintain vigilance against anchoring, priming, and biases, but it is completely worth the effort to avoid System 1 thinking coming in and making a poor, rash judgment. We should remind ourselves of times where we did exercises control over external influences and to ultimately trust in our own intuition.
Problems with each system: System 1 will generate overconfident judgments because confidence is determined by the logic of the best story you can determine from the given evidence. Regression to the mean is difficult for System 2 to comprehend and requires intentionality to avoid error. As an educator, how do we apply “taming the intuitive predictions” when we must rely on background information about students while working with them. How do we properly operate in System 2 to evaluate student needs? Persistent intentionality? Constant self-reflection?
Kahneman researched the perceived happiness of students who live in California compared to those who live in Michigan and Ohio. Although he showed that Californians enjoyed their climate while Midwesterners despised theirs, he concluded that climate was not an important determinant of well-being. He found that there was no difference whatsoever between the life satisfaction of students in California and those in the Midwest. Simultaneously, he discovered that students in both regions shared the same mistaken view. These views were based on an error to an exaggerated belief that climate largely influenced happiness. This error, known as a focusing illusion, provides a sense of comfort. Focusing illusion can cause people to be incorrect about their present state of well-being as well as incorrectly judging the happiness of others. I am curious how focusing illusion occurs in the classroom. Which type of students does it most often effect? Do teachers suffer from focusing on illusion?
One last quote from Kahneman which I shall ponder this coming week: “The test of learning psychology is whether your understanding of situations you encounter has changed, not whether you have learned a new fact. You are more likely to learn something by finding surprises in your own behavior than by hearing surprising facts about people in general.” As an educator this next week, I will attempt to be more intentional to engage System 2 thinking and seek to find something which surprises me about my own behavior.
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