Last week we looked at how decisions are made. We discussed the many automatic and unconscious steps leading from the initial spark of an idea, to an action, then to the story your mind tells you about what just happened. This week we are going to go to take a look at the work of Dr. Daniel Kahneman. In 2011, he published a best-selling book called “Thinking Fast and Slow”, where he described 2 distinct systems in the brain that govern thought. The first, he called System 1. This is the fast thinking system which functions as your “autopilot” brain. The other he called System 2. This is the slow thinking system which Kahneman described as an “editor”. It can be called into play at will, but more typically engages only in selective circumstances.
Let’s start by discussing System 1. This system has several specialized tasks that it accomplishes automatically and with speed and efficiency. When I say speed, we are looking at 30-40 milliseconds to detect danger, 140-200 ms to read emotional valence and 300-500 ms for facial recognition and full conscious awareness. So the most complicated System 1 tasks take less than ½ of a second to complete. It makes rapid judgements with little information. Because it is fast and efficient, it conserves mental energy for other more complex tasks. It also allows for you to become fluent in new skills once you learn them. It is designed to compress experiences into fast, usable signals. The downside, though, to any system that relies on compression is that you also lose information. Let’s go a bit deeper into how this system actually works and where it has some limitations.
The first task is pattern recognition. “Have I seen something like this before?” System 1 constantly scans the environment for familiar configurations such as faces, a tone of voice, various situations, the social dynamics, and emotional cues. Once a pattern feels familiar, System 1 stops analyzing, fills in any missing information, then predicts what comes next. When dialed in, this is what mastery looks like. It allows a person to bring instant expertise to a situation. You can see this with people who are able to “read a room” or a doctor’s “clinical intuition” or even with people who are skilled drivers, able to anticipate the moves of other drivers while also avoiding road hazards. While the brain is good at recognizing patterns it can go wrong when the initial patterns are learned from limited or biased data. It also tends to give more weight to earlier experience at the expense of more recent experiences. Finally, false patterns can be locked in when paired with emotional intensity. This may be true for trauma and threats, but it is also true for hitting a jackpot. To sum up, System 1 does not ask “Is this pattern true?” but it asks “Does this feel familiar?”
The next task is heuristics (or mental shortcuts). “Good enough is good enough”. Heuristics can be thought of as rules of thumb designed to save time and energy. Kahneman showed in his book that they are efficient but also systematically biased. There are several common examples such as the availability heuristic: The thing that comes to mind easily feels more common or more true. Another example is the representativeness heuristic: If it resembles a category, it must belong there. There is also anchoring: First information sets the reference point, even if irrelevant. Heuristics are important and exist because the brain does not have the bandwidth to stop and calculate everything. Also, from an evolutionary point of view, speed often mattered more than accuracy if you want to avoid getting eaten or attacked. In modern life, however, heuristics can fail. Feedback can be delayed – overeating and lack of exercise may have no immediate negative consequence, so System 1 concludes “It does not really matter”. In reality, the negative effects can accumulate over time leading to poor health. Data can be noisy – you made one good stock pick and now you think you are an investment genius. System 1 concludes “I must be good at this”. In reality, the signal is buried in randomness, and variance is confused with insight. There can also be emotional or social distortions - Someone challenges your idea and your body reacts as if threatened. You become defensive. System 1 concludes “They are wrong or hostile”. In reality, the emotional reaction preceded reasoning and got anchored, while logic only got recruited afterward. As much as heuristics are useful to save time, their limitations need to be understood and respected. Survival shortcuts can get you into trouble when applied to abstract problems. Later, we will discuss where System 2 can have an important role in auditing System 1 to make sure the correct heuristics are being used in the correct situations. Stay tuned.
The next task is emotional tagging – “How did that feel the last time it happened?” We discussed this process a bit last week. System 1 attaches emotional labels to experience. Was this experience safe or dangerous, pleasant or unpleasant, worth it or not worth it. Once an experience is tagged, future decisions are guided by affect (a vibe or feeling), and not by any thoughtful analysis. This process explains why some choices feel “obviously wrong” without any logical backing. It also explains why avoidance can feel rational or certainty can feel like the moral choice. Misprogramming can occur because stronger emotions create stronger tags. Emotional tagging can be biased by chronic stress, shame or fear. Trauma, in particular, can massively distort the accuracy of tagging. System 1 remembers how the situation felt but does not weigh in on whether the interpretation was accurate. This is a situation where System 2 needs to revisit and relabel the experiences deliberately and more accurately. More on that later.
The final task is learned associations – “When A happens, B follows”. In this case, System 1 functions as a correlation machine linking stimuli to outcomes, actions to consequences and people to expectations. This process shapes our daily habits. An example might be “silence = danger.” Growing up in a volatile household where silence precedes anger or punishment creates the association that “silence means something bad is coming”. This association can play out in later relationships with people-pleasing behavior, overexplaining or having anxiety when someone does not respond immediately. The same person may also misread neutrality as rejection or compulsively fill quiet gaps in conversations. What we can take away from this is that System 1 does not learn what is true, it learns what was paired, repeated and emotionally charged. This is why associations persist even after they are outdated and why insight alone does not undo them. System 2 becomes important here. The only way to fix incorrect associations is to recognize the pattern then retrain System 1 through deliberate, repeated experience until the new response becomes automatic.
Let’s shift gears and learn a bit about System 2, the slow thinker. The reason it is slow is because it runs through current information in real time. It evaluates evidence, checks logic, weighs probabilities, overrides impulses and learns new rules. System 2 is typically underused because it requires effort and can feel slow or uncomfortable. It also taxes the body’s resources and can lead to fatigue. Kahneman described it as “lazy” but it might be better understood as selective. It only activates when there is novelty, something feels “off”, the stakes are high or when you deliberately call in online to address a problem. The best example I can think of to describe System 2 is as a mostly disengaged CEO of a company. He has full authority, but most of the time he is off playing golf. He has limited attention and does not like to be bothered by unnecessary meetings. He only shows up when there is a crisis or when the board forces him in for a meeting. It is important to realize that it is not the CEO’s job to step in and fix every mistake. Enduring change happens when policy is changed, staff is retrained and the system is redesigned so that the same mistakes don’t keep happening. Let me explain.
As mentioned earlier, System 1 is dominant and controls much of our decision making throughout the day. For all of the mundane situations, this is fine. By contrast, when there is a crisis, System 2 reliably comes online for most people. It will force a pause and allow an opportunity to look carefully at the situation to compose a logical and thoughtful response. The problem is the murky middle ground. There are times when System 1 is miscalibrated. The snap decision that you made turns out to be the wrong choice or leads to an undesirable outcome. In these situations, it is useful to self reflect, take a deep breath and shift into System 2. Time for the CEO to have a “come to Jesus” meeting with the staff. Here is what that process might look like. The first step is noticing a faulty automatic response. Maybe you overreacted emotionally to a friend or coworker. Maybe you caught yourself making a biased snap judgement that turned out to be wrong. Maybe you caught yourself in avoidant patterns. Maybe your overconfidence led to an embarrassing failure. When these happen, take time to deliberately slow down and analyze the situation with honesty and acceptance. What actually happened? Was there evidence that you missed? Could the situation have meant something else? If you see a pattern where System 1 is miscalibrated, make a mental note of the circumstances and try to catch it next time. There is no judgement here – we all have miscalibrations. Most of the miscalibrations will occur in one of the 4 areas described above. Was it an error in pattern recognition? Here is where familiar patterns from childhood may be outdated or may have been laid down inaccurately. Was it an error in heuristics? Maybe your “rule of thumb” is missing an important exception to the rule, or maybe you catch a bias that requires an entire rethinking of what you thought to be true. Be bold here. Was the error misplaced emotional tagging? Before making a decision based on emotion, do nothing in the moment. Wait for the emotion to pass then reevaluate with logic. Maybe dare yourself to try that experience again in a different context – a positive experience can “retag” the emotions in System 1. Was the error in learned associations? Maybe B does not always follow A. Pause, ask the questions and look for the current patterns instead of just relying on the old ones. This is the process of pulling situations into System 2. Carefully think about an appropriate response. Try it out in real situations, with awareness. Look for feedback on the other side to confirm a better outcome. This is where a trusted friend or a therapist can be a useful ally or spotter for you. The more you practice your new and improved responses, it eventually becomes a System 1 firmware update. The slow responses become faster and eventually become second nature. This process takes System 2 out of just being the slow and deliberate crisis manager and turns it into a System 1 trainer. You are now on the path to wisdom, greater competence and harmony with those around you. If you like what you just read and found it helpful, please consider subscribing.