Books Recommended by Daniel Kahneman

Daniel Kahneman is a psychologist, author, economist and winner of a Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.

He’s known for his work in behavioral economics, cognitive biases, the psychology of judgment and decision-making, challenging the assumption of how rational humans are.

Kahneman is the author of the book “Thinking, Fast and Slow“, about the two systems that drive the way we think: System 1 is fast, emotional, impulsive and intuitive, and System 2 is slower, more deliberative and logical.

It’s based on his research done over decades in collaboration with Amos Tversky, who was a cognitive and mathematical psychologist who studied the systematic human cognitive bias and handling of risk. The book also shares many insights from Kahneman’s work with the Israel Defense Forces and with the various departments and collaborators that have contributed to his growth as a thinker and researcher.

While Daniel was a little child living in France, the country was occupied by nazis. He wrote about that period and explained that it’s one of the reasons he studied psychology: “I was walking down an empty street, I saw a German soldier approaching. He beckoned me over, picked me up, and hugged me. I was terrified that he would notice the [Star of David]inside my sweater. When he put me down, he opened his wallet, showed me a picture of a boy, and gave me some money. I went home more certain than ever that my mother was right: people were endlessly complicated and interesting.”

After studying in Israel, he went to the USA to get a PhD in psychology and in 1961 began his academic career as a lecturer. In the following decades, he published together with Amos Tversky several seminal articles about decision-making and judgement, elaborating the prospect theory, that describes why people choose uncertainty.

Books recommended or written by Daniel Kahneman: