Foreign thinker
Daniel Kahneman
Daniel KahnemanCognitive psychology, behavioral economics, and decision theoryIsraeli-American1934–2024
"Nothing in life is as important as you think it is while you are thinking about it."
Life and Thought
Daniel Kahneman was an Israeli-American cognitive psychologist and economist known for his pioneering research on human judgment, decision-making, and cognitive biases. He received the 2002 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for integrating insights from psychology into economics, especially in decision-making under uncertainty.
Daniel Kahneman was born in 1934 in Tel Aviv, then under the British Mandate for Palestine, and spent parts of his childhood in France and Israel. He studied psychology and mathematics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and later earned a doctorate in psychology from the University of California, Berkeley. His scientific work focused largely on human judgment, decision-making, and mental processes.
Together with Amos Tversky, Kahneman conducted influential research on cognitive biases and heuristics in human decision-making. Their work showed that people often rely on mental shortcuts rather than fully rational calculations, leading to systematic biases. This research became a foundation of behavioral economics.
One of Kahneman’s most important contributions was Prospect Theory, developed with Tversky, which explains how people make choices involving risk and uncertainty. His 2011 book Thinking, Fast and Slow presented his ideas about two modes of thought: fast intuitive thinking and slow analytical thinking. He received the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 2002.