System 1 and System 2 describe what happens in the brain when you make decisions. In terms of cognitive psychology, there is a lot going on. But do you think hard about whether you wash, brush your teeth and get dressed after getting up? Probably not, because it would take an incredible amount of energy throughout the day if we were constantly making these decisions consciously.
This is why there are two systems in the brain, which Daniel Kahneman describes in more detail in his bestselling book “Thinking Fast, Thinking Slow”:
- System 1, which processes fast, arbitrary, automatic and effortless thinking (for example, brushing teeth)
- System 2, which directs attention to strenuous mental activities and makes more complex calculations. This often goes hand in hand with concentration, decision-making freedom and the power to act.
When we think about ourselves, we tend to identify with System 2, the conscious and logical thinking self. System 2 believes that it is at the center of our thinking. However, it is System 1, in which spontaneous impressions and feelings arise, that controls our behavior. To do this, it draws on complex patterns of ideas.
So we are not as rational as we like to believe.
Vany people trust their intuitions too much, says author and Nobel Prize-winning economist Kahneman. However, it is precisely this trust in intuition that has an immense impact in many areas of life and leads to distortions. Cognitive psychologist Kahneman describes the interplay between the two systems as follows:
System 1 runs automatically and System 2 is in low effort mode, where it only uses part of the capacity. System 1 continuously makes suggestions to System 2 through impressions, intuitions, intentions and feelings. If these impressions and intuitions are supported by System 2, they become beliefs, which as impulses become intentionally controlled actions. System 2 therefore does not modify the suggestions of System 1 and you simply trust its impressions and impulses. System 2 becomes active when System 1 cannot find an answer to a question. This way of working is extremely efficient because it minimizes effort and optimizes brain performance. It would simply be overwhelming to have to think about every stimulus from the environment.
An example of when your System 2 becomes active is this task from Kahneman’s “Think Fast, Think Slow”.
Just read the text and answer the question. One person was described by a neighbor as follows:
“Steve is very shy and withdrawn, always willing to help, but hardly interested in others or in reality. A gentle and orderly person, he has a need for order and structure and a passion for detail.”
Is Steve more of a librarian or a farmer?
What did you decide on?
Do you think Steve is more of a librarian? What do you base this decision on? Can’t a farmer also be withdrawn, helpful, gentle and have a need for order? Actually, yes, but you’ve probably created an image in your head based on the information you’ve been given (which in principle says very little). Because you lack substantive information, you fill this gap with information that already exists in your head but is not necessarily true. For example, because it is the stereotype of a librarian to be rather closed-minded and not interested in reality. It is precisely processes like this that lead to prejudices. These prejudices are rather indirect and invisible to you, but very obvious to all those who are affected by them.
You can certainly find the above example from “Think fast, think slow” in many areas of life – for example in a job application situation.
Because whenever we lack information, System 2 fills the gap with the associations that are already there. And if, for example, as in the popular children’s book Pippi Longstocking, you have repeatedly seen how indigenous people are described there – namely in a rather racist way as savages who are actually viewed more like animals – your brain makes this association and stores it. If, as in the example with the farmer and the librarian, there is a gap in the processing of an impulse in system 2, you could fill the impression with this association.
Further examples: Dark-haired men with full beards who speak straight Arabic are associated with fanatical Islamists because we see more and more of these images in the media. Or this false assumption: a woman who wears high heels and short shorts is easy to get. So if you find yourself in a mental environment that is unpredictable, Kahneman recommends: think again. Gut instinct is good and right in many situations, but not in many.
I also recommend that you question and reflect on the boxes that your brain offers you.
You can learn. These stereotypes and unconscious prejudices are in all of us, whether we like it or not. It has even been proven in many studies that we have more empathy for those who are most like ourselves (my literature tip: Shakil Choudhoury: Deep Diversity, Unrast Verlag). Belonging to a group is the key driver of human behavior and also saved our lives when we were still living in caves. Today, we still have these primeval thought patterns within us, but they are not always helpful in a globalized world and internationally collaborating teams. We are not rational beings, but are guided – consciously or unconsciously – by our emotions.
We therefore have to compare what we feel with what we think and reprogram if necessary.
Kahneman even humbly states at the end of the book, “Except for a few effects that I attribute mostly to my age, my intuitive thinking is just as prone to overconfidence, extreme predictions and the planning fallacy today as it was before my studies on these topics.
And I hereby also confess: I have a lot of drawers in my head and am working on them. It’s probably a life’s work, but I think it’s urgently needed in society.
