Assignment 21 - Reading Reflection No. 2

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I selected “Thinking fast and slow” by Daniel Kahneman for my second reading reflection.

1) General theme/argument of the book

The book investigates how our brain works and comes up with a theory about two systems: one automatic and impulsive system (system 1) and one very conscious and considerate system (system 2). While system 1 is a remnant from our past and crucial to our survival, system 2 is a rather recently “added” to our brain. Kahneman found out that our brain works according to the law of least effort, which means that our brain uses the minimum amount of energy for each task. Therefore, our brain does not use system 2 if it thinks that system 1 can make the decision too. This leads to serious mistakes and errors sometimes.

2) Link to ENT3003

I think the book “Thinking fast and slow” and the class “Principles of Entrepreneurship” match perfectly together. As we learned during the course, entrepreneurs need to exploit opportunities. The book showed me how many errors and mistakes people make just because they relied on their gut feeling or thought they could make decisions by themselves. All these failures are opportunities for entrepreneurs to step in and help people to make the right decision.

3) Exercise

I would suggest an exercise where students have to think about situations in their life, where they made a wrong decision. Then they should investigate why the made this decision and with which part of their brain. Also, the students should decide how they could have avoided making the wrong decision.

4) Biggest surprise


I did not only have one big “aha” moment when reading the book but many. For me, it was always surprising when Kahneman described example situations, which I already experienced by myself. Learning what the reasons for my wrong decisions or perceptions were, was always kind of stunning. Most of the time, I never thought about the reasons before reading the book.

Comments

  1. UnknownNovember 8, 2018 at 4:03 PM

    Hello,

    This was one of the books I was wanting to read because the dialogue seemed very interesting to me. Honestly anything about the brain and how it works makes an aha moment. I really like your idea for a class assignment because it also allows students to reflect and improve on their past. I did learn something in your post and it was the fact that our brain uses minimum amount of energy for each task.

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