Thinking Fast & Slow – Cognitive Biases in the Workplace

In his book Thinking Fast and Slow, Nobel winner Daniel Kahneman introduces two mental systems, one that is fast and the other slow. Together they shape our impressions of the world around us and help us make choices. System 1 is largely unconscious and makes snap judgments based upon our memory of similar events and our emotions. System 2 is painfully slow, and is the process by which we consciously check the facts and think carefully and rationally. However, System 2 is easily distracted and System 1 is wrong quite often. System 1 is easily swayed by our emotions. Examples he cites include the fact that pro golfers are more accurate when putting for par than they are for birdie (regardless of distance), and people buy more cans of soup when there’s a sign on the display that says “Limit 12 per customer.” In this session we will, through interactive games, learn how our minds can affect our abilities to investigate, observe, and recall events. We’ll discuss some strategies to minimize our minds erroneous impacts to those abilities.