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Enjoy. Hi everyone,

0:49

it's Adam Grant. Welcome back to Rethinking,

0:51

my podcast on the science of what makes us

0:53

tick. I'm an organizational psychologist

0:55

and I'm taking you inside the minds of

0:58

fascinating people to explore new thoughts and new

1:00

ways of thinking. My

1:02

guest today is Daniel Kahneman. Danny

1:04

won a Nobel Prize in economics. He's been named

1:06

one of the most influential economists in the world.

1:10

But he's not on board with that. Danny

1:13

is one of the great psychologists of our time. Actually,

1:16

of all time. You

1:18

may have read his influential book, Thinking Fast

1:20

and Slow. This conversation

1:22

with Danny challenged one of my core beliefs

1:24

about intuition. It also

1:26

gave me a new perspective on which ideas are

1:28

worth pursuing. And since Danny

1:30

is an expert on decision making, I thought

1:32

I'd start by asking about what we're actually

1:35

trying to accomplish in so many of our

1:37

choices. You've

1:48

spent a lot of your career studying happiness

1:51

and related topics. And

1:54

really for the first time in my career,

1:56

I started to wonder why are we so

1:58

obsessed with happiness as psychologists? I'm

2:01

all for people leading enjoyable satisfying

2:03

lives, but if

2:05

I had to choose, I would much rather have

2:08

people focus on character, on

2:10

trying to build their generosity, their

2:12

integrity, their commitment to

2:14

justice, their humility. And I wonder

2:16

if you could talk to me a little bit about

2:19

whether you think we've lost our

2:21

way a bit and character has been

2:23

too little in focus or too

2:26

far in the background or whether you think happiness

2:28

deserves the attention it's gotten. I

2:30

think my focus

2:32

would be neither happiness nor character.

2:36

It would be misery. And

2:39

I think that there is a

2:41

task for society to

2:44

reduce misery, not to increase

2:46

happiness. And when you

2:48

think of reducing misery, you

2:50

would be led into very

2:52

different policy directions. You

2:54

would be led into mental health issues. You

2:57

would be led into a lot

2:59

of other problems. So

3:01

reducing misery would be my focus.

3:05

Character and happiness or

3:07

misery are not substitutes. And

3:10

the idea which has been accepted both in the

3:12

UK and in many other places, and in quite

3:14

a few other countries by now, is

3:16

that the objective of society,

3:19

the objective of policy, should

3:21

be increasing human

3:23

welfare or human well-being

3:26

in a general way. I

3:28

think that's a

3:30

better objective for policy

3:33

than increasing the quality of

3:35

the population's character. I think

3:37

it's a better objective. I

3:39

think it's a more

3:41

achievable objective, except I would not focus

3:44

on the positive end. I would focus

3:46

on the negative end. And I would

3:48

say it is a responsibility of society

3:50

to try to reduce misery. And

3:53

let's focus on that. We

3:56

speak of length and not of shortness. speak

4:00

of happiness, the

4:02

dimension is labeled

4:04

by its positive power. And

4:08

that's very unfortunate, because actually,

4:10

increasing happiness and reducing misery are very

4:13

different things. I agree. And it's interesting

4:15

to hear you say that reducing misery

4:17

is more important than promoting happiness. In

4:19

some ways, that feels like a critique

4:22

of the positive psychology movement.

4:24

It is. And tell me a little bit more about

4:26

why. Well, I

4:29

think the positive psychology

4:31

movement has, in some

4:34

ways, a deeply conservative position.

4:38

That is, it says, let's accept

4:40

people's condition as it is, and

4:43

let's make people feel better about

4:45

their unchanging condition. You

4:48

know, there has been some critique

4:50

of positive psychology along those lines.

4:52

I'm not innovating here. But

4:56

I think that focusing

4:58

on changing circumstances, on

5:00

dealing directly with misery,

5:03

is more important and

5:05

is a wealthier objective for

5:07

society than making people feel

5:09

better about their situation. Yeah,

5:11

I mean, I think it certainly tracks

5:13

with how I think about, in general,

5:15

bad being stronger than good and

5:18

the alleviation of misery contributing more

5:20

to the quality of people's lives

5:22

than some degree of elevating of

5:24

the amount of joy that they feel. But I

5:27

also wonder at times if this is not

5:29

a false dichotomy, that if you want to

5:31

make people happy, it's awfully difficult

5:33

to do that if you don't pay attention

5:35

to the misery or suffering that they might

5:37

experience. Actually,

5:40

we went

5:42

and did a study in which

5:44

we were measuring how people feel,

5:47

how much of the

5:49

day are people in different states,

5:51

positive or negative. And

5:55

it turns out that people

5:58

are in a positive state. On

6:00

average, 80% of

6:04

the time, more than 80% of the time, that

6:06

is on average, people are on the positive

6:09

side of zero. Now

6:11

look at, say, the 10%

6:14

of the time that people spend suffering

6:17

overall. Most

6:19

of the suffering is concentrated

6:21

in about 10% to 15% of the

6:23

population. Well,

6:27

it actually is not the same

6:30

people that you would make less

6:32

miserable or happier. Those

6:34

are different populations. And the question

6:36

is, where do you direct the

6:39

weight of policy and what do

6:41

you pay more attention to? Very

6:44

interesting. I like it. So

6:47

you're basically saying, look, if we have scarce

6:49

resources, whether those are financial or time or

6:51

energy, we want to concentrate on the group

6:53

of people who are suffering as opposed to

6:55

those who might be languishing. It

6:59

seems to me that to some extent,

7:02

we have been trapped by

7:04

a word. I mean, it's

7:06

the word happiness, which

7:08

seems to stand for the whole dimension.

7:14

And I think this is leading to

7:16

some policies. Actually, this

7:18

failing to lead to

7:21

policies that would really be

7:23

directed at increasing

7:25

human well-being by decreasing

7:27

misery. Yeah, I

7:29

think so too. And it's something I've thought about

7:32

a lot at work, given that the hat I

7:34

wear most often is organizational psychologist. I

7:36

feel like the obsession with employee engagement

7:39

has really missed the mark. I don't go to

7:41

work hoping that I'm going to be engaged today. I

7:44

hope that I'm going to have motivation and

7:46

meaning and that I'm going to have a

7:48

sense of well-being. And I wonder

7:50

if one of the effects that the pandemic has had

7:52

on a lot of people and a lot of leaders

7:54

in workplaces Is to get them to

7:56

recognize, you know what?? We Need to care about people's

7:58

well-being in their lives. Just their engagement at

8:01

work. Well. I

8:05

thought that you know I'm not an

8:07

expert, this is you'll feel that mine

8:09

But I thought that Engage runs. Has

8:12

is close to feeling good

8:14

at work when the weather.

8:16

It's the responsibility of workplaces

8:18

to deal with people's well

8:20

being in general. I agree

8:22

that it's they're responsible for

8:24

dealing with people's well being

8:26

at work and Best doesn't

8:28

seem to me to be

8:30

very different from trying to

8:32

make people engaged and the

8:34

happy with what they're doing.

8:36

So I'm a be curious

8:38

to hear more about the

8:40

dichotomy of the. Distinction That

8:43

too is drawing between engagements

8:45

and will be my interpretation

8:47

of engagement was fairly close

8:49

to well being as whoop.

8:52

Yeah. I think I think of in

8:54

large part it depends on which conceptualization

8:56

and measure of engagement were talking about.

8:58

but one of the where the more

9:00

interesting. Patterns. In the literature,

9:02

that that got me thinking quite a

9:04

bit is that it's possible to be

9:06

and engaged workaholic. And

9:09

this this is undifferentiated recently from

9:11

being a compulsive workaholics in are

9:13

you are you working a lot

9:15

because you find it interesting and

9:17

worthwhile? Or are you doing it

9:19

because you feel guilty when you're

9:21

not working and you feel kind

9:23

of obsessed with this with the

9:25

problem that you're trying to solve.

9:27

And I think that one version

9:29

of engagement is probably. Healthier than

9:31

the other, and I associate well

9:33

being much more with with being

9:36

an intrinsically motivated workaholic than with

9:38

a compulsive workaholics even though both

9:40

her highly engaged. I

9:42

agree. Oh. And

9:45

I worked for a while with

9:47

Yellow. I was consulted with Gallup

9:49

many years ago. And

9:52

that concept of engagements. Us

9:54

It was a positive concert. One

9:57

of the criteria that I remember for

9:59

people. Being happy at work is having

10:01

a friend that was. So

10:04

clearly at least their concerts of

10:06

engagement such as the ones that

10:08

the only one that I know

10:11

much about his by and large

10:13

of positive concert and certainly. Ah,

10:16

the was. We don't want people to

10:18

be compulsive. Although. Although

10:23

I don't know how to describe

10:25

myself. For example, when when I'm

10:27

at work harder when I used

10:29

to work very hard of was

10:31

I doing so compulsively? Was I

10:33

doing so. Out. Of

10:35

intrinsic motivation I think both.

10:38

I was intrinsically motivated, and I

10:40

was compulsive about. So.

10:42

I'm not sure of the

10:45

distinction that to a drawing

10:47

between being compulsive m ah,

10:49

being intrinsically motivated. Well.

10:51

I like the called a look at ambivalence

10:53

there because they could get it. Speaks to

10:55

the point that you rates earlier to said

10:57

in a positive emotions and negative emotions can

10:59

coexist. You can work because you're passionate about

11:01

it and because you feel bad if you're

11:03

not doing it. That's what I want to

11:05

ask you about. The Joy of Being runs

11:07

the place I wanted to begin on. This

11:09

is to ask you when you were growing

11:11

up earlier in your life such as you

11:14

handle making mistakes. I'm

11:18

hesitating because I suck at Saturday's.

11:20

Didn't make any mistakes recently made

11:22

many as I was very impressed

11:24

by the states within they would

11:26

not very salient in my life.

11:28

so if you're asking about might

11:30

only united student and saw I

11:32

don't have much to report this

11:34

have an interest as a researcher.

11:37

Ah, I found my mistakes.

11:40

Their instructors and and they

11:42

were sort of positive experiences

11:44

by unlocks. As. such an

11:46

odd thing to hear you say we

11:48

must have pests most diverse experience pay

11:50

not pleasure when you know when we

11:53

find out that were wrong or we

11:55

discover that we've made a mistake so

11:57

how did you arrive at a place

11:59

where you found that to be a teachable moment?

12:02

Well, you know, those

12:04

are situations in which you're surprised. I've

12:08

really enjoyed changing my mind because

12:10

I enjoy being surprised, and I

12:12

enjoy being surprised because I feel

12:14

I'm learning something. So it's

12:17

been that way. I've been lucky, I think, because

12:19

I think you're right that

12:22

this is not universal, the positive

12:25

emotion to corrected

12:27

mistakes, but it's just

12:30

a matter of luck. I mean,

12:32

I'm not claiming I'm all around

12:34

here. It's

12:37

fascinating to watch though, because I've seen your

12:40

eyes light up and it's palpable. When

12:44

you discover that you were wrong about a hypothesis

12:47

or a prediction, you

12:49

look like you are experiencing joy. And

12:52

I've started to think a

12:54

lot about what prevents people from

12:56

getting to that place. And

12:58

I think a lot of it is for so many people,

13:01

they get trapped in either a

13:03

preacher or a prosecutor mindset of

13:06

saying, you know, I know my

13:08

beliefs are correct, or I know other people are

13:10

wrong. And at some point,

13:12

their ideas become part of their identity. And

13:15

I know even scientists struggle with this, right? I think

13:18

at least when I was trained as a

13:20

social scientist, I was taught to be passionately

13:22

dispassionate. But I

13:24

know a lot of scientists who struggle with detachment

13:26

and you don't seem to. So how

13:28

do you keep your ideas from, I guess, becoming

13:31

part of your identity? Well, I

13:33

think that I mean,

13:35

this is going to sound awful. I

13:38

have never thought that ideas are rare.

13:42

And if that idea isn't any good, then

13:44

there is another that's going to be better.

13:48

And I think that is probably generally

13:51

true, but not generally acknowledged.

13:54

So that for people to give up on

13:56

an idea may, in many

13:58

cases, lead to a sort of optimist

16:00

more irrational persistence

16:04

are good things to have. So

16:07

the expected value of it might

16:09

be negative, although when you look

16:11

back, every big success you can

16:14

trace to some irrationality. Well,

16:16

that goes beautifully to one of my favorite

16:19

ideas of yours that we

16:21

look at successful people, and

16:23

we learn from their habits, not realizing that

16:25

we haven't compared them with people who failed,

16:27

who had many of the same habits. And

16:31

I wanted to, I guess, ask

16:33

you a broader question, which is having put

16:35

these kinds of decision heuristics and cognitive biases

16:38

on the map, which one

16:40

do you fall victim to the most? Is it

16:42

confirmation bias? It sounds like maybe not. I

16:44

just wondered which of which of

16:46

the biases that you've documented is your

16:49

greatest demon? All of them, really

16:52

all of them, except as you

16:54

said, confirmation bias. By

16:56

the way, people close to me find

16:58

this irritating. That is that

17:00

whenever they have a problem with someone,

17:04

I automatically take the other side

17:06

and try to explain whether someone might

17:08

be right after all. So I have

17:11

that contrarian aspect

17:13

to what I am. Oh,

17:16

this, this reminds me a little bit of a possibly

17:19

apocryphal story that I

17:22

think told to every doctoral student in

17:24

social science these days, which is that

17:27

not long after you won the Nobel Prize for

17:29

your work on decision making, there was a journalist

17:31

who asked you how you made tough

17:33

decisions. And you said you flip

17:35

a coin. Is this true? No. Okay,

17:38

good. Absolutely. I'm really never flipped a

17:40

coin to make a decision in my

17:42

life. The version of

17:44

the story I heard was that you would flip

17:46

the coin to observe your own emotional reaction and

17:49

figure out what your biases were. I

17:52

might have said that this is one of

17:54

the benefits of flipping a coin, but I

17:56

personally have never used it. But

17:58

it's true that But flipping

18:01

a coin would be a way of discovering

18:04

how you feel if you didn't know earlier.

18:07

That I still believe. I feel very

18:09

relieved to know that because I was worried about

18:11

you, given all you know about

18:13

decision making, making important life choices

18:15

with the coin toss. You

18:45

know, when I look back at

18:47

my life, it's,

18:49

there's been a series of things

18:51

that, you know, ultimately

18:54

I made decisions or I made

18:56

life choices clearly. But

18:58

I did not experience them as

19:02

decisions. I have

19:04

very little to say describing myself about

19:08

making decisions in part

19:10

because I have pretty

19:12

strong intuitions and

19:14

I follow them usually. So

19:17

the decision doesn't feel hard if

19:20

you know what you're going to do. And

19:23

if you know yourself and you're going to

19:25

do it anyway, it doesn't feel very hard.

19:28

I have to say Danny, I'm a little shocked

19:30

to hear you say that you follow your intuition

19:32

because you have spent most

19:35

of your career highlighting all the

19:37

fallacies that come

19:39

into play when we over rely on our

19:42

intuition. Well,

19:45

you really have to distinguish judgment

19:49

from decision making. And

19:52

most of the intuitions that we've

19:54

studied were fallacies

19:57

of judgment rather than decision

19:59

making. And second,

20:03

my attitude to intuition is not that

20:05

I've spent my life saying

20:08

that it's no good. In the

20:11

book that we're writing, that we've just finished

20:14

writing, our advice is not to

20:16

do without intuition. It is to delay it.

20:19

That is, it is not to

20:22

decide prematurely and

20:24

not to have intuitions very early. If

20:26

you can delay your intuitions, I

20:29

think they are your best guide, probably, about what

20:31

you should be doing. Okay,

20:34

so two questions there. One is how, the

20:36

other is why. Well,

20:38

if they delay your intuitions,

20:41

you know, and now

20:43

I'm talking about formal decisions, decisions

20:45

that might be taken within an

20:48

organization, or a decision that an

20:50

interviewer might take in deciding whether

20:52

or not to hire a candidate.

20:55

And here, the advice of

20:58

delaying intuition is simply because

21:00

when you have formed an intuition, you

21:03

are no longer taking in information. You're

21:06

just rationalizing your own decision, or

21:08

you're confirming your own decision. And

21:10

there is a lot of research

21:12

indicating that this is actually what

21:14

happens in interviews. That interviewers spend

21:16

a lot of time, they make

21:18

their mind up very quickly, and

21:20

they spend the rest of the

21:22

interview confirming what they believe, which

21:24

is really a waste of time.

21:27

Yes. Yes. So the

21:29

idea of delaying your intuition is to

21:32

make sure that you've gathered comprehensive,

21:35

accurate, unbiased

21:37

information, so that then

21:39

when your intuition forms, it's based on

21:41

better sources, better data. Is

21:43

that what you're after? Yes, because I don't

21:46

think you can make

21:48

decisions without there being endorsed

21:50

by your intuitions. You

21:53

have to feel conviction. You

21:55

have to feel that there is some good

21:57

reason to be doing what you're doing. So

22:00

ultimately, intuition must

22:02

be involved. But if it's involved,

22:06

if you jump to conclusions

22:08

too early or jump to decisions

22:10

too early, then

22:13

you're going to make avoidable mistakes.

22:17

Well, this is an interesting twist on, I

22:19

guess, how I've thought about intuition, especially in

22:22

a hiring context, but I think it applies

22:24

to a lot of places. My

22:27

advice for a long time has been don't trust

22:29

your intuition. Test your intuition. Because

22:32

I think about intuition as subconscious

22:34

pattern recognition, and I want to

22:37

make those patterns conscious so I can figure out whether

22:39

whatever relationship I've detected in the past

22:41

is relevant to the present. It

22:44

seems like that's what you've argued as well

22:47

when you've said, look, you can trust your

22:49

intuition if you're in a predictable environment, you

22:51

have regular practice, and you get immediate feedback

22:53

on your judgment. I

22:55

think the tension for me here is I don't

22:58

know how capable people are of delaying

23:00

their intuition. And I wonder if

23:02

what might be more practical is to

23:04

say, okay, let's make your intuition explicit

23:06

instead of implicit early on, so that

23:08

then you can rigorously challenge it and

23:10

figure out if it's valid in this

23:12

situation. I've been deeply

23:15

influenced by something that I did very

23:17

early in my career. I mean, when

23:19

I was 22 years old, I

23:21

set up an interviewing system for the

23:23

Israeli army. It was to

23:26

determine suitability for combat units.

23:31

And the interview system that I

23:33

designed broke up

23:35

the problem so that you had

23:38

six traits that you were interviewing

23:40

about. You were asking factual

23:43

questions about each trait at the

23:46

time, and you were scoring each

23:48

trait once you had completed the

23:50

questions about that trait. I'm

23:52

not going in here because this is such a cool example,

23:54

but it needs a little explaining. Danny

23:56

created a system for interviewers to rate job

23:59

candidates on specific... traits like

24:01

work ethic, analytical ability, or integrity.

24:04

But interviewers did not take it well. They

24:07

really hated that system when

24:10

I introduced it. And they told

24:12

me. I vividly remember one of

24:14

them saying, you're turning us

24:16

into robots. Danny decided

24:18

to test which approach worked best. Was

24:21

it their intuition or their ratings from the data?

24:24

The answer was both. Their

24:27

ratings plus their intuition. But

24:29

not their intuition at the beginning. Their

24:31

intuition at the end after they

24:33

did the ratings. But as

24:36

you rate those six traits and

24:39

then close your eyes

24:42

and just have an

24:45

intuition, how good do you think

24:47

the soldier is going to be? When

24:50

the data came back, it

24:52

turned out that that intuition

24:54

at the end was the

24:57

best single predictor. It

25:00

was just as good as the average

25:02

of the six traits and

25:05

it added information. Wow.

25:09

And I was surprised. I

25:12

just was doing that as a favor to them, letting

25:15

them have intuitions. But the

25:17

discovery was very clear. And

25:20

we ended up with a system in which the

25:22

average of the six traits

25:24

and the final intuition had equal weight. What

25:29

you recommend then concretely is for a manager

25:31

to make a list of the skills and

25:33

values that they're trying to select on to

25:37

do ratings that are anchored on those dimensions. I

25:39

might judge somebody's coding skills if they're

25:42

a programmer or their ability to sell

25:44

if they're a salesperson. And then

25:46

I might also be interested in whether they're aligned

25:48

on our organizational values. And

25:50

then once I've done that, I want to form

25:53

an overall impression of the candidate because I may

25:55

have picked up on other pieces of information that

25:57

didn't fit the model that I had. I

26:00

think that's about right. It's such

26:02

a powerful step that I think

26:05

should bring the best of both worlds

26:07

from algorithms and human judgment. There's

26:10

something that's a little puzzling to me about it

26:12

though, which is why are

26:14

managers and people in general so enamored

26:16

with intuition? I think it's because people

26:18

don't have an alternative. It's

26:22

because when they try to reason

26:24

their way to a conclusion, they

26:26

end up confusing themselves. And

26:30

so the intuition

26:32

wins by default. It

26:34

makes you feel good. It's easy to do,

26:36

and it's something that you can do quickly.

26:40

Whereas careful

26:42

thinking, in

26:44

a situation of judgment where there is

26:47

no clearly good answer, careful

26:49

thinking is painful. It's

26:52

difficult, and it leaves you in

26:54

a state of indecision or in

26:56

a state of even if one

26:58

option is better than the other,

27:00

you know that the difference is

27:02

not something you can be sure

27:04

of. Whereas when you go the

27:06

intuitive route, you'll end up with

27:09

overconfident certainty and feeling good about

27:11

yourself. So it's an easy choice,

27:13

I think. You

27:16

wrote about this topic at length in what

27:19

some have called your magnum opus, Thinking Fast

27:21

and Slow. I'm

27:23

wondering what you've rethought since you

27:25

published that book. Well,

27:31

you know, there were things I published in that

27:33

book that were wrong. I mean,

27:36

you know, literature I quoted that didn't hold

27:38

up. Now, the interesting

27:40

thing about that is

27:42

that I haven't changed my

27:44

mind about much of anything. But

27:47

that is because changing your mind is really

27:50

quite difficult. Dan

27:53

Gilbert has a beautiful word he called

27:55

that unbelieving. And unbelieving things

27:58

is very difficult. I

28:00

find it extremely hard to unbelieve

28:03

aspects or parts of thinking fast and

28:06

slow, even though I know that my

28:08

grounds for believing them are now much

28:10

weaker than they were. But

28:12

the more significant thing that

28:15

I have begun to rethink is

28:20

that thinking fast and slow,

28:23

like most of the

28:25

study of judgment and decision-making, is

28:28

completely oblivious to individual

28:31

differences. And all

28:33

my career, I made

28:36

fun of anybody who was studying individual

28:39

differences. I say, I'm

28:41

interested in main effects, I'm interested

28:43

in characterizing the human mind. But

28:46

it turns out that when you go into detail, people,

28:50

those studies that you have, it's

28:53

not that everybody is behaving like

28:55

the average of the study, that's

28:57

simply false. There are different

29:00

subgroups, we're doing different things,

29:03

and life turns out to

29:05

be much more complicated than if you were

29:07

just trying to explain the average. So

29:10

the necessity for studying

29:13

individual differences is I

29:15

think the most important thing that I have

29:17

rethought, it doesn't have

29:20

any implications for me because it's too late

29:22

for me to study individual differences. And I

29:24

wouldn't like doing it anyway, it's not my

29:26

style. But

29:29

I think there is much more room for

29:31

it than I thought when I

29:33

was writing Thinking Fast and Slow. Another

29:37

thing I wanted to ask you about is the choices

29:40

you make about what problems and projects to

29:42

work on. I'm

29:44

not a good example for anybody.

29:47

I really never had a plan, I

29:50

more or less followed my notes, and

29:53

I did many things that I shouldn't have done.

29:57

I wasted a lot of time on

29:59

that. on projects

30:01

that I

30:04

shouldn't have carried out. But

30:07

no, I've been lucky. Well,

30:11

I think that's probably an encouraging message for a

30:13

lot of us. That is, and the idea is

30:15

this an area where

30:18

there is gold and

30:20

I'm going to look for it. I mean,

30:22

that's an idea. And

30:25

formulating a new question, that's an idea in

30:27

my book. I'm going to use that. This

30:29

is an area where I think there might

30:32

be gold and I want to look for

30:34

it. Such a nice reframe.

30:37

So Danny, you mentioned

30:39

your new book, Noise. One

30:42

of my favorite ideas when I read Noise was

30:44

the idea of the inner crowd. And I wondered

30:46

if you could explain that. There've

30:48

been two lines of research

30:51

by Boel and Paschler

30:53

and by Hertwig on

30:55

asking people the same question on

30:59

two occasions or in two different frames

31:01

of mind. And it

31:03

turns out that when you ask

31:05

the same question, like an estimate

31:08

of the number of airports, when

31:11

you ask people the same question twice,

31:14

separated by some time, then

31:17

they tend to give you different answers

31:19

and the average of the answers is

31:22

more accurate than each of them

31:24

separately. Also in the case that

31:28

the first answer is no valid than

31:30

the second. And it's also the case

31:33

that the longer you wait, the better

31:35

the average is, the more information there

31:37

is in the second judgment

31:39

that you make. You

31:41

know, what it indicates is clearly

31:43

that what

31:46

we come up with when we ask ourselves

31:48

a question is we're sampling

31:50

from our mind. We're not extracting

31:53

the answer from our mind. We're

31:55

sampling an answer from our mind

31:57

and there are many different ways.

32:00

that that sample could come

32:02

out. And sampling twice, especially

32:04

if you make them independent, sampling twice

32:07

is going to be better than sampling

32:09

once. This

32:12

is one of the most practical, unexpected

32:15

decision-making and judgment perspectives

32:18

that I've come across in the last few years.

32:20

And in part because it says, I

32:22

don't always need a second opinion if

32:24

I can get better at forming my own second opinions.

32:28

You know, I think as we say in that

32:31

chapter, sleep

32:33

over it is really

32:35

very much the same thing. That

32:37

as sleep over it, just wait. And

32:40

tomorrow you might think differently. So

32:42

the advice is out there, reinforcing

32:45

it may be useful. Your

32:48

collaboration with Amos Tversky is obviously legendary.

32:51

There's a whole Michael Lewis book about

32:53

it. Is there a lesson

32:55

that you took away from that collaboration

32:58

that's informed either how you choose your

33:00

collaborators now or how you work with

33:02

the people on your teams? I think

33:04

that one really important

33:06

thing is

33:11

to be genuinely interested in what

33:13

your collaborator is saying. And,

33:16

you know, I'm

33:18

quite competitive. Amos was quite competitive.

33:21

We were not competitive when we

33:23

worked together. And

33:25

the joy of

33:27

collaboration for me always was that

33:31

that almost, that was more with Amos

33:33

than with almost anyone else. I would

33:36

say something and he would understand it

33:38

better than I had. And

33:40

that's the greatest joy of

33:43

collaboration. But in my other

33:45

collaborations, taking pleasure

33:48

in the ideas of your collaborator

33:51

seemed to be very useful. And

33:53

I've been lucky that way. On

33:56

that note, almost anyone who's ever won

33:58

a Nobel Prize has complained. that

34:00

it hurt their career. I've

34:03

wondered what the experience has been like for

34:05

you. It hurts

34:07

people's career if they're young. I

34:11

got mine when I was 68, and

34:13

for me it was a net plus. Why does

34:15

it get people in trouble if they get it earlier? There

34:20

are a variety of ways that this can happen.

34:22

In the first place, it's very destructive. I

34:25

mean, people start taking you more

34:28

seriously than they did, and hanging on your

34:31

every word, and a lot of nonsense like

34:33

that. And

34:37

if you begin to take yourself too seriously,

34:40

that's not good. If

34:42

you take time away from

34:45

your work to

34:48

do what you're invited to do when you

34:50

get a Nobel, which is a lot of

34:52

talking, and a lot of talking, and think

34:54

that you don't know much about, that's

34:57

a loss. And then if

34:59

it makes you self-conscious that everything that

35:02

you have to do has to be

35:04

important, that's a loss. So

35:06

there are many different ways, I think, in

35:09

which getting a Nobel early is a bad idea.

35:13

It's not the best. I

35:15

was at a good age to get it because

35:17

I had some

35:19

years left in my career, and

35:21

it made many things much easier

35:23

having a Nobel. And

35:26

it made the

35:29

end of my career more productive,

35:31

I think, and happier

35:34

than it would have been other than once.

35:44

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