Thinking, Fast and Slow

Daniel Kahneman won the 2002 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his work on decision-making with Amos Tversky. He serves as the Eugene Higgins Professor of Psychology, Emeritus, at Princeton University and as a Professor of Psychology and Public Affairs, Emeritus, at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs.

Kahneman’s work on decision-making, including his development of prospect theory with Tversky, provided the undergirding for the emergence of behavioral economics as a push against preexisting rational choice theory. The key insights into the operation of the human mind that Kahneman and Tversky pioneered have influenced a range of disciplines and have been operationalized through several significant changes in public policy.

Kahneman was born in Tel Aviv in 1934, although he primarily lived in Paris. His family, which was Jewish, fled invading Nazis several times before and during World War II. He earned a Bachelor of Science in psychology from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1954. He then served in the psychology department of the Israeli military. In 1958 he traveled to study at the University of California, Berkeley, where he earned a PhD.

Kahneman’s academic positions prior to appointment at Princeton include serving on the faculties of Hebrew University in Jerusalem (1970-1978), the University of British Columbia (1978-1986), and the University of California, Berkeley (1986-1994).