Power Nap #52
The myriad of ways that humans abandon logic and leap to conclusions from Kahneman and Tversyky
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“You waste years by not being able to waste hours.”
— Amos Tversky, on the link between creativity and free time
Kahneman and Tversyky
Daniel Kahneman died on March 27. Here is his obit from the NYT. Kahneman, and his long-time partner Amos Tversky (who is also dead), researched the myriad ways that humans abandon logic and leap to conclusions. In other words, the ways in which we are not rational. Nate read Michael Lewis's book on Kahneman and Tversky years ago when it came out. And Power Nap follower Elizabeth Marchant of Charleston shared this New Yorker article that chronicles the book and some of the duo's research finds. Here are two of Nate's favorites heuristics they wrote about:
Anchoring: humans rely more heavily on the first piece of information offered (the "anchor") when making decisions. For example, an experiment was conducted among real estate agents who were given the opportunity to value a house. The agents visited the house and were given a comprehensive booklet of information that included an asking price. Half of the agents were shown an asking price that was substantially higher than the listed price. Alternatively, the other half of the agents were shown an asking price that was substantially lower than the listed price. The asking price had a 41% anchoring effect on the real estate agents’ reasonable buying price calculations.
Availability: mental shortcut that occurs when people make judgements about the probability of events by the ease with which examples come to mind. For example, in a 1973 Tversky & Kahneman experiment, the majority of participants reported that there were more words in the English language that start with the letter K than for which K was the third letter. There are actually twice as many words in the English Language that have K as the third letter as those that start with K, but words that start with K are much easier to recall and bring to mind.
This section and The NTK March Madness Bracket Challenge are being generously sponsored by Cuisinart. All thoughts and opinions shared here are uniquely my own. Thank you for supporting The Power Nap and Naptime Kitchen, Cuisinart!
The NCAA tournament concluded last night with the UConn Huskies defeating the Purdue Boilermakers 75-60. We wanted to thank all 10,258 of you for entering the 2024 NTK Bracket Challenge sponsored by Cuisinart. This year, we had the fifth largest private group on ESPN.com!! We wanted to give a huge shoutout to our winner Monica Griffin, who correctly predicted the finals and finished with the 2,918 ranked bracket worldwide! Amanda Miller finished second and Heather Houston placed third in a tiebreak! Monica, Amanda, and Heather, please reach out to nate@naptimekitchen.com so we can get your information and send you your prizes!!
As a reminder, the prizes are:
First Place: $750 Visa Gift Card + Cuisinart Air Fryer Toaster Oven With Grill
Second Place: $500 Visa Gift Card + Cuisinart Pure Indulgence 2-Quart Ice Cream, Frozen Yogurt & Sorbet Maker
Third Place: $250 Visa Gift Card + Cuisinart Smart Stick Variable Speed Hand Blender
View the full group here
Let's take a look at the first place prize:
