---
type: literature
author: "Daniel Kahneman"
year: 2011
created: "2026-01-15"
tags:
  - cognitive-psychology
  - decision-making
  - dual-process
---

# Thinking, Fast and Slow

## Key Ideas

- **System 1** is fast, automatic, and intuitive; **System 2** is slow, deliberate, and analytical
- Cognitive biases arise when System 1 heuristics are applied to problems requiring System 2
- The [[Dunning-Kruger Effect]] is a manifestation of poor System 2 oversight of System 1 confidence
- [[Cognitive Load Theory]] helps explain when System 2 fails -- it's resource-limited
- Expertise is essentially System 1 pattern recognition trained through [[Deliberate Practice]]

## Quotes

> "A reliable way to make people believe in falsehoods is frequent repetition, because familiarity is not easily distinguished from truth."

> "Nothing in life is as important as you think it is, while you are thinking about it."

## Connections

- System 1/System 2 maps onto the [[Schema Theory]] idea of automatic vs. controlled processing
- Cognitive ease relates to [[Desirable Difficulties]] -- easy processing can be a trap
- The role of attention connects to [[Working Memory]] bottlenecks
- Informs the [[Metacognition]] note on knowing when to switch strategies
- Relevant to [[Teaching Methodology Research]] for understanding student reasoning errors

#cognitive-psychology #decision-making
