[Obituary] Psychologist and behavioral economist Daniel Kahneman dies at the age of 90, contributing to the development of behavioral economics and winning the Nobel Prize in Economics
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Daniel Kahneman, a psychologist and behavioral economist who proposed the theory that 'not all economic decisions are strictly rational,' passed away on March 27, 2024 at the age of 90.
Best-selling psychologist and Nobel economist Daniel Kahneman dies at 90: NPR
https://www.npr.org/2024/03/27/1241206604/thinking-fast-slow-psychology-behavioral-economics-daniel-kahneman-obit-nobel
Daniel Kahneman – Biographical - NobelPrize.org
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2002/kahneman/biographical/
Kahneman was born to Lithuanian Jewish parents in Tel Aviv, Israel, in 1934. He grew up in France, where his parents were persecuted by anti-Semitic movements, and later moved to Palestine.
As a teenager, Kahneman became interested in questions such as 'the meaning of life' and 'why people believe in God,' and decided to become a psychologist around this time. Later, Kahneman majored in psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and was deeply influenced by the books of social psychologist Kurt Lewin .
Kahneman was drafted in 1954 and served one year in the military before being transferred to the psychology department of the Israel Defense Forces. He participated in the selection of candidates for officer training and was tasked with analyzing the personalities of the candidates, but he realized that he could not obtain statistical results linking personality and ability evaluation. These military experiences had a strong influence on Kahneman's thinking on cognition and illusions. After leaving the military in 1956, Kahneman studied philosophy and psychology for several years and later took up a lectureship at the Hebrew University's psychology department.
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What changed Kahneman's life was his meeting with psychologist Amos Tversky . Both of them had backgrounds in psychology, and they both challenged the then-prevailing assertion that 'people's economic behavior is driven by strictly rational thinking.' At the peak of their careers, from 1971 to 1981, they co-authored eight papers, five of which had been cited more than 1,000 times by the end of 2002.
Kahneman and Tversky are famous for their research on the theory that some people's judgments about uncertain events are influenced by heuristics, which create predictable biases, and the prospect theory, which argues that people have a stronger desire to avoid losses than to gain gains, and therefore tend to avoid short-term risks even if the outcome is the same. Kahneman won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2002 for his prospect theory.
Kahneman also reflected on his relationship with economist Richard Thaler , whom he called 'my second most important professional friend,' saying that 'he was a major factor in my winning the Nobel Prize.' Kahneman, who has had connections with many other psychologists and economists, has made a profound contribution to the development of behavioral psychology that continues into the 21st century.
Tversky died in 1996, and Kahneman paid tribute to him, saying, 'Amos was the freest man I ever knew, and the most disciplined man I ever knew. He made a huge difference in my life, and when he died, our lives became darker.'
by nrkbeta
In 2011, he published a book summarizing his findings, ' Thinking, Fast and Slow ,' which later became a bestseller. In 2013, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Upon Kahneman's death, Thaler said, 'Kahneman had his own unique psychological ideas. He was an inveterate pessimist who always assumed the worst would happen, but he would argue that this was a rational way of thinking because it would make you less disappointed with the outcomes of your life. As a self-described optimist, I tried to convince him not to worry, but to no avail. The fact that he lived to be 90 years old and in reasonably good health should have proved me right, but in the end I was unable to change his way of thinking.'
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