Daniel Kahneman: biography of this psychologist and researcher
Daniel Kahneman (1934) is an Israeli nationalized American psychologist who has conducted important studies in decision making, judgment, economic behavior theory and economic behavior, as well as experimental economics. The latter have impacted not only psychology but also the economy and human activity in business, an issue that led him to obtain the Nobel prize for economics in 2002.
Then we will see a biography of Daniel Kahneman as well as some of its main contributions.
- Related article: "History of Psychology: authors and main theories"
Daniel Kahneman: biography of this influential psychologist
Daniel Kahneman was born on March 5, 1934 in Tel Aviv, Israel; while his mother, originally from Lithuania, visited relatives. His first years he lived in Paris, a city to which both parents moved since 1920.
His stay in Paris was marked by the political context of the Nazi occupation, at which time his father was arrested and subsequently released. In his writings, Kahneman himself has reported that the experience of living this context marked in an important way his later interest in the study of sociology .
In the year of 1948, Kahneman and his family moved to Palestine, shortly before the creation of the State of Israel. Eight years later, in 1954, Daniel Kahneman specialized in psychology through a bachelor's degree obtained by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. As soon as he finished his training as a psychologist, Kahneman he played in the area of psychology of the Israeli defense forces .
After this he continued his professional development in the United States, specifically at the University of Berkeley, in California, where he received a PhD in Psychology in the year of 1958. As a teacher and researcher, Kahneman has worked at the Hebrew University, the University of Michigan, Harvard University, among others. He is currently an academic at Princeton University.
Theoretical development
In the beginning, Kahneman focused his research on the study of attention and perception. Subsequently he focused on the study two processes that eventually led him to be recognized as one of the most influential psychologists of the time: the trial and decision making . However, towards the decade of the 90's, Kahneman gives a new twist to his studies and begins to investigate in the area of hedonistic psychology.
Law of small numbers
Together with another Israeli psychologist, Amos Tversky, Daniel Kahneman developed important theories about behavioral economics . For example, the law of small numbers.
Through this concept, psychologists verified a quite common phenomenon: the tendency to value the sample distribution as a population, regardless of the size of the sample; which has as a consequence to obtain hasty and biased conclusions.
The mathematical studies of Tversky, and the formation in sciences of Kahneman took to develop this law and to look critically diverse scientific investigations as well as to explain diverse phenomena, as the interpretation of political preferences and various cognitive biases .
Theory of perspectives
One of the most recognized theories of Kahneman, which he developed in collaboration with Tversky, is the theory of perspectives. It is recognized as one of the main theories on behavioral economics, and suggests that, the less uncertainty about the consequences of a decision, the greater the orientation towards risks of some people.
Before his theories, the economy argued that decisions were determined by the calculation of final gains of each possible scenario, as well as by the possibility that the latter could actually be obtained. Thus, each person would assess which is the most likely scenario and make a decision based on that.
However, Kahneman's research showed that people were unable to analyze complex situations involving decision making when there was uncertainty about their future consequences. In fact, the evaluation based on the probability of occurrence of a given result, was an exercise absent for the decision making in almost all the people who participated. So, they argued that this exercise is finally based on determining what the value of losses and gains is , and not only in the most probable final result.
- Maybe you're interested: "Daniel Kahneman's theory of perspectives"
Hedonistic psychology
By connecting jobs in economics with hedonistic psychology, Kahneman develops a new line of research focused on analyzing the welfare situation and the possibilities of reaching a state full of happiness based on the economic situation.
This line connects psychology with economics and sociology, since it investigates the effects of economic dynamics on individual psychology and social practices. In the same sense, the center of this theory is not so much the economy as the research on the quality of life.
Main works
The text "Pupillary Diameter and Memory Load", of 1966 and published in the Science Journal, was one of the pioneering works in this subject. Later, in the year of 1971 and together with Amos Tversky, Kahneman publishes the article "Belief in the law of small numbers", work that inaugurated the theory that bears the same name.
In the year of 1979 they published the article "Prospective theory: an analysis of the decision under risk", that it became one of the most influential works of both psychologists .
Also, for his contributions to the understanding of decision making in the economic context, as well as in cognitive psychology related to this, Kahneman received the Nobel prize for economics in 2002 and together with Vernon Smith .
In 2011 he received the Talcott Parsons Award from the Academy of Arts and Sciences, for his contributions to the social sciences. In the same public the best-seller Think fast, think slowly.
Bibliographic references:
- Daniel Kahneman (2018). Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved September 4, 2018. Available at //www.britannica.com/biography/Daniel-Kahneman
- Daniel Kahneman (2012). Totally History Retrieved September 4. Available at //totallyhistory.com/daniel-kahneman/
