9:53am Thursday, March 28
Saint Paul, Minnesota
Not sure if you heard the news…
Daniel Kahneman, behavioral psychologist and winner of the 2002 Nobel Prize in Economics, passed away yesterday at age 90.
Daniel Kahneman wrote the book, “Thinking, Fast and Slow,” about how human brains have two systems for thinking:
• System 1 is FAST. It relies on the knowledge and habits and biases we already have. It’s not particularly accurate, but it helps keep us alive without burning too many calories.
• System 2 is SLOW. It processes information, which takes effort. We don’t like effort, generally, so System 2 pushes off decisions to System 1 whenever possible, or just drops the problem all together.
Now System 1 can either get excited by something… or worried about something.
This is Kahneman and his research partner Amos Tversky’s Prospect Theory: We run from pain, we walk towards pleasure.
From a marketing standpoint, when we try to give new information for someone to consider, it can require effort for that person to contemplate and decide.
It’s just easier to say No, drop the problem, and keep the status quo.
Which is why you want to target System 1, relying on ideas and knowledge that people already have, to reinforce your own sales message.
I’ve written about Kahneman before and discussed him in various episodes of the Persuasion Play Podcast—those episodes aren’t up on YouTube yet but they are coming.
Meanwhile, check out this breakdown of Prospect Theory here.
Have a wonderful day,
Jeffrey