THE NEW YORK TIMES

MAN IN THE NEWS | BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA
4 Years Later, Scarred but Still Confident
By Peter Baker
September 6, 2012

...The Limits of Rationality

A few months ago, Mr. Obama read “Thinking, Fast and Slow,” by Daniel Kahneman, about how people make decisions — quick, instinctive thinking versus slower, contemplative deliberation. For Mr. Obama, a deliberator in an instinctive business, this may be as instructive as any political science text.

Mr. Obama, the 51-year-old Harvard law graduate, sees himself as a rational thinker and came to office with what might be called the Reasonable Person Theory of Government. If he could simply sit down and talk with other political actors, whether they be Republicans from the House or mullahs from Tehran, he seemed certain he could work something out. His faith in his own powers of persuasion was deep.

But politics is often not rational, at least not as Mr. Obama defined it. The Iranians have proved immune to Mr. Obama’s charm, as have the North Koreans, the Taliban and Vladimir V. Putin. So have the Republicans and, for that matter, even some Democrats. ...

A SHORT COURSE IN THINKING ABOUT THINKING

Edge Master Class 07
DANIEL KAHNEMAN
Auberge du Soleil, Rutherford, CA, July 20-22, 2007
AN EDGE SPECIAL PROJECT

[EdgeVideo: 50 minutes]

What we're saying is that there is a technology emerging from behavioral economics. It's not only an abstract thing. You can do things with it. We are just at the beginning. I thought that the input of psychology into behavioral economics was done. But hearing Sendhil was very encouraging because there was a lot of new psychology there. That conversation is continuing and it looks to me as if that conversation is going to go forward. It's pretty intuitive, based on research, good theory, and important. — Daniel Kahneman

A SHORT COURSE IN BEHAVIORAL ECONOMICS

Edge Master Class 2008
Richard Thaler, Sendhil Mullainathan, Daniel Kahneman
Sonoma, CA, July 25-27, 2008

AN EDGE SPECIAL PROJECT 

There's new technology emerging from behavioral economics and we are just starting to make use of that. I thought the input of psychology into economics was finished but clearly it's not!

TWO BIG THINGS HAPPENING IN PSYCHOLOGY TODAY (Class 4)
A Talk By Daniel Kahneman

[EdgeVideo: 13 minutes]

PUTTING PSYCHOLOGY INTO BEHAVIORAL ECONOMICS (Class 6)
Richard Thaler, Sendhil Mullainathan, Daniel Kahneman

"We'd certainly be better off if everyone sampled the fabulous Edge symposium, which, like the best in science, is modest and daring all at once." — David Brooks, New York Times column

Master Class 2011
The Science of Human Nature
[7.15.11]
Daniel Kahneman, Martin Nowak, Steven Pinker, Leda Cosmides, Michael Gazzaniga, Elaine Pagels

The power of settings, the power of priming, and the power of unconscious thinking, all of those are a major change in psychology. I can't think of a bigger change in my lifetime. You were asking what's exciting? That's exciting, to me.

THE MARVELS AND THE FLAWS OF INTUITIVE THINKING
Daniel Kahneman

[EdgeVideo: 81 minutes]