In this article, I’m going to explain you the difference between thinking fast and slow.

How Could They?!?

Have you been in a situation in which your emotions got the best of you? You were simply on an emotional rollercoaster and burst out in rage without thinking about it?

The key phrase is without thinking about it – it was your immediate reaction.

Another example might be when you intuitively knew the answer to a difficult problem or a riddle. It just felt right and you went for it.

Are You Thinking Fast or Slow?

Humans like to think of themselves as rational thinkers who are always trying to maximize their own pleasures or to reach certain goals.

However, research in cognitive science, psychology, and economics is showing that more often than not we base our decisions on irrational heat-of-the-moment emotions.

In his book Thinking Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman, who started his academic career as a psychologist in 1961 at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, introduces two modes of thinking our brain tends to use.

System 1 (OS1) thinking is intuitive thinking – It’s fast, emotional, involuntary, effortless, and of subconscious origin.

It’s fast, emotional, involuntary, effortless, and of subconscious origin. System 2 (OS2) thinking is rational thinking – It’s slow, logical, systematic, deliberate and of analytical origin.

That’s the basic idea – this left and right hemisphere type of approach to how we make decisions. Let’s look at them in closer detail.

System 1 vs System 2

System 1 Thinking operates on heuristics that are mental shortcuts for making quick presumptions and fast conclusions.

This happens when we either think we know a lot about something and we start making mistakes, or when we get ourselves so lost in the heat of the moment that our emotions get the best of us.

System 2 Thinking operates on deeper analysis and problem solving as to not make any false presumptions.

To let this mental module to do its work, you need concentration, detachment from the situation, calculation of the cause and effect relations that are at play, and then making the most optimal decision.

Both of them are invaluable parts of your mind and you need them in various circumstances. The key is to recognize which way of thinking you’re using in different situations and to identify where you may be blinded by your own blind spots and heuristics.

Systems 1 Thinking

Our brain demands an enormous amount of energy every day for checking in on the body’s physiological processes. Laziness and finding shortcuts are in our nature and its what allows us to improve our cognition in the first place.

Thinking fast (OS1) is used for routine tasks, automatic habits, and to satisfy needs that have to be immediately met like protecting yourself from your co-worker by yelling at them.

Thinking slow (OS2) is used for tasks that require more focus and deeper contemplation. You take the time to go through the information more thoroughly as to make a better decision like which

You’d think that you’re more of an OS2 thinker who’s always in control but in reality, most of us are thinking based on Systems 1.

Because of Systems 1 Thinking, you’re able to know what’s ’1+1’, use grammar to formulate sentences, read text on billboards instantly, and fill out answers to word pairs like ’fire and…’ or tell the date of your birthday by heart.

System 1 governs the autonomic nervous system, regulates your homeostasis, makes you follow your routines and create habitual reactions to events that you’ve come across in the past.

Characteristics of System 1

Here are some of the common traits and heuristics of System 1 Thinking

Your impressions and feelings are emotionally based and they feel more real than anything else in the world. This is called the affect heuristic, which is the tendency to think that if something feels good then it’s the right decision. “You have the right to feel angry, It’s a gut feeling, there couldn’t be any other way.”

This is called the affect heuristic, which is the tendency to think that if something feels good then it’s the right decision. “You have the right to feel angry, It’s a gut feeling, there couldn’t be any other way.” It reinforces your already existing preconceptions and paradigms. Again – because your brain wants to be sure that you’re doing the best thing for survival, it makes you try to seek out proof that would support your beliefs. This is the confirmation bias – the tendency to interpret information in a way that confirms what you already think is true.

Again – because your brain wants to be sure that you’re doing the best thing for survival, it makes you try to seek out proof that would support your beliefs. This is the confirmation bias – the tendency to interpret information in a way that confirms what you already think is true. System 1 tries to predict things that seem easier, more familiar, and fit with a pattern. This heuristic is called cognitive ease and its purpose is to try and understand what’s going on as fast as possible. “I already know the answer to that. Or I already know how to do it so I’m not going to read the manual.” It also tries to substitute difficult problems with simpler ones.

This heuristic is called cognitive ease and its purpose is to try and understand what’s going on as fast as possible. “I already know the answer to that. Or I already know how to do it so I’m not going to read the manual.” It also tries to substitute difficult problems with simpler ones. It tries to create coherent stories that would make things seem like they’re normal. Chaos and uncertainty are something our brains try to avoid like wildfire. Whenever something unexplainable happens we try to rationalize it by saying it’s fate, God, or it was meant to be this way.

Chaos and uncertainty are something our brains try to avoid like wildfire. Whenever something unexplainable happens we try to rationalize it by saying it’s fate, God, or it was meant to be this way. It goes for the most readily available solution. This is the anchoring heuristic, which is the tendency to think that the information we received just recently is more appropriate in making decisions just because it’s fresh in our mind. For instance, if you’re asked whether Gandhi was more than 114 years old when he died, then you’d give a larger guesstimate than if you were to be asked whether he was more or less than 35 years old. You think that Gandhi died around 114, not 35 because you think that based on what you’ve been told it might have indeed been the case. He died at 79 btw. It also fits the availability heuristic which is the tendency to think that the things we remember are more likely to happen again and that they are more important. “If I think about it, then it must be important.”

System 1 creates the Halo Effect which is the tendency to like or dislike everything about a person or a thing even if you don’t know everything about them. That’s why first impressions are so powerful and why it’s very difficult to reclaim someone’s trust if you’ve broken it once. Kahneman coined the abbreviation „WYSIATI“ – what you see is all there is – to allow System 2 to try and stay more objective by focusing on the hard data instead of impressions and intuitions.

Characteristics of System 2

Here’s how System 2 Thinking works

It requires conscious effort to maintain. You have to be deliberately focusing on something and break the pattern. Whenever you’re trying to walk faster than normal, trying to concentrate, choosing to do something different or controlling your initial response, then you’re using System 2.

You have to be deliberately focusing on something and break the pattern. Whenever you’re trying to walk faster than normal, trying to concentrate, choosing to do something different or controlling your initial response, then you’re using System 2. System 2 is used only in situations that require attention to detail. By default System 1 is running on autopilot but whenever you come across a question you don’t know the answer to you’ll bring in System 2.

By default System 1 is running on autopilot but whenever you come across a question you don’t know the answer to you’ll bring in System 2. System 2 monitors and controls your behavior. It directly expresses, suppresses or modifies your thoughts and actions through conscious effort. That’s why anxious people tend to use more Systems 2 Thinking because they’re thinking about what others are thinking of them and that’s making them even more self-conscious.

It directly expresses, suppresses or modifies your thoughts and actions through conscious effort. That’s why anxious people tend to use more Systems 2 Thinking because they’re thinking about what others are thinking of them and that’s making them even more self-conscious. System 2 criticizes, judges, and doubts your behavior. When System 1 tries to eliminate all doubt and hesitation so that it could fit your coherent story, then System 2 makes you question everything and leaves you open to the possibility that you’re wrong.

When System 1 tries to eliminate all doubt and hesitation so that it could fit your coherent story, then System 2 makes you question everything and leaves you open to the possibility that you’re wrong. System 2 prefers statistics over stories. Our stories are often emotional and intuitive but they’re simply stories we use to explain the world in a way that fits our beliefs of how we think the world works. System 2 simply looks at the raw data and bases decisions on what the numbers are telling. That doesn’t mean that your system 2 can’t come up with rationalizations and create its own narratives. You try to explain things in a very logical way which in reality may still be you coming up with your stories.

Our stories are often emotional and intuitive but they’re simply stories we use to explain the world in a way that fits our beliefs of how we think the world works. System 2 simply looks at the raw data and bases decisions on what the numbers are telling. That doesn’t mean that your system 2 can’t come up with rationalizations and create its own narratives. You try to explain things in a very logical way which in reality may still be you coming up with your stories. System 2 slows down your thinking and overrides intuitive predictions. Overconfidence comes from System 1 which is suitable for some situations. However, optimism and confidence may bite you in the ass if they’re unwarranted and not backed up by real performance.

Which One Is Better?

Both ways of thinking have their role and significance. These traits have developed for being rational with things that have a bigger consequence for survival and to be intuitive in things that the subconscious mind excels at.

If you were to be completely system 2, you’d get severe anxiety and self-consciousness. On the flip side, fully giving in to system 1 will lead you to falling victim to your own emotions and irrational behavior.

The key is to use system 2 to teach your system 1 how to make better decisions and to build intuitive wisdom that’s appropriate to a wide range of contexts.

Knowing how your mind works and what fallacies it tends to commit is the starting point to understanding why you feel in a certain way and what you can do to improve it.

We already mentioned a few of the thinking fast and slow heuristics and cognitive biases. Those same models can be used to program your subconscious mind and support your goals. A few examples.

Priming

Conscious and subconscious exposure to an idea „primes“ us to think about its associations.

For instance, fill in the blank to SO_P. If we’d been talking about food, you’d think of soup. But if we’d been talking about hygiene you would’ve most likely thought of soap.

These subtleties influence our behavior by making us behave in a way to make things easier. If you were to hold a smile on your face, then all jokes are going to sound funnier even when there’s no real joke. Or you’re more prone to ordering French wine at a restaurant if you’re hearing French music.

We’re being primed by our emotions, our thoughts, our actions, and our environment.

The emotions you feel most often become your default state because your brain gets familiar with them. Even if you feel self-hatred or apathy, after some time, you get addicted to those emotions because you can be certain of them – you know they exist and even though they cause you suffering, you’ll at least have your negativity. That’s why it’s important to notice what emotions you’re feeling on a daily basis and to consciously keep yourself in the right emotional state.

because your brain gets familiar with them. Even if you feel self-hatred or apathy, after some time, you get addicted to those emotions because you can be certain of them – you know they exist and even though they cause you suffering, you’ll at least have your negativity. That’s why it’s important to notice what emotions you’re feeling on a daily basis and to consciously keep yourself in the right emotional state. The ideas you get exposed to prime your thinking. If you read superficial social media posts or watch the news, then you’re brain is more prone to drive more meaning from them. It’s important to force yourself to think about ideas on a larger scale by learning about the greatest thinkers of all time. Eleanor Roosevelt said: „Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people.“

If you read superficial social media posts or watch the news, then you’re brain is more prone to drive more meaning from them. It’s important to force yourself to think about ideas on a larger scale by learning about the greatest thinkers of all time. Eleanor Roosevelt said: „Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people.“ The environment primes your behavior. Your friends, the social group you associate yourself with, and the signals you receive from your surroundings are all triggers for doing something. They say you’re the average of the 5 people you spend time with the most which is true up to the point you want to fit in with your friends. You as a person are the product of your environment. Always, You adapt and develop certain qualities based on the stimuli you receive.

By priming your environment with the ideas that challenge your beliefs and help you to move closer to your goals, you can make yourself think certain thoughts and feel certain emotions which will build a more wise System 1 operating system.

I Doubt, Therefore, I Am

The problem with goals is that you can never be sure that your personal pursuits, preferences, or narratives are actually any good.

That’s why feeling good and right about something may not always be correct.

System 1 wants to eliminate all doubt by making you feel good about the things you think are right. On the subconscious level, strong convictions and beliefs indicate that what you’re doing is good for your highest evolutionary goals. At the same time, what you think is right may be wrong. Your intuition makes you feel like it is the right thing to do even though it’s based on false preconceptions.

On the subconscious level, strong convictions and beliefs indicate that what you’re doing is good for your highest evolutionary goals. At the same time, what you think is right may be wrong. Your intuition makes you feel like it is the right thing to do even though it’s based on false preconceptions. System 2 is the skeptic that doubts everything and makes you hesitate. It’s your inner critic that challenges those beliefs and intuitions. You’ll experience cognitive dissonance and mental distress when you’re forced to hold two or more conflicting ideas in mind at once.

When it comes to achieving your goals or living a successful life, then you need to have system 1 type of confidence as to have enough courage to take action. If you were to hesitate and question everything all the time with system 2, you’ll over-analyze and will never begin.

Radical Open-Mindedness and Selective Ignorance

Whatever the case may be, you want to be doubtful about your behavior and actions – question everything about yourself, challenge your beliefs and keep learning. Look at your values and try to poke holes into them as much as you can.

At the same time, when it’s time to act – when you have to make decisions – you have to remove all hesitations. Instead of dabbling and doubting, like you would with System 2, you decide with burning conviction.

That’s why it’s important to maintain radical open-mindedness as to ensure your intuition doesn’t get the best of you and to avoid getting stuck in over-thinking as well.

Evolution has designed your brain to not seek out the truth but to simply survive and achieve your goals. It’s like our minds have deliberately created an elusive balance between selective ignorance and neurotic self-consciousness.

Hindsight Is a Bitch

Your mind is self-deceptive because it tries to protect you and explain the world in a way that would fit your paradigm. It can be very useful to conjure up certain narratives even though they may be false.

More often than not, we create stories about the past and shape our predictions about the future. “I knew this was going to happen…It’s just pure luck.” Being ignorant about our ignorance is a very effective evolutionary strategy for maintaining congruency and certainty about ourselves.

This is the hindsight bias or illusion – we take things as self-explanatory after they’ve happened. Past events like the financial crisis of 2008 or World War II were perfectly predictable after the fact. This makes it so easy to go “why didn’t anyone do something about it if it was blatantly obvious.” We think we understand past events and so we can predict the future but we don’t actually understand the past as well as we think.

Inconclusive ideas may lead to inconclusive conclusions. Arguments based on purely past experiences are very limiting as some things happen despite the fact they haven’t happened before.

System 3 Thinking

As we’ve found out, there are 2 modalities of thinking our brain uses. Most of our behavior is based on System 1 – you feel automatic thoughts and emotions based on intuition. When it’s time to think about your thinking, you employ System 2 that evaluates and analyzes everything.

Both of them are useful in different scenarios.

When it comes to making financial decisions then you should definitely make sure you’re deciding with system 2 because spending money emotionally or looking at statistics with a gut feeling isn’t probably a good idea. Intuition is often wrong because we don’t know what we don’t know. That’s why it’s important to look at the data if it’s possible. Numbers don’t lie.

because spending money emotionally or looking at statistics with a gut feeling isn’t probably a good idea. Intuition is often wrong because we don’t know what we don’t know. That’s why it’s important to look at the data if it’s possible. Numbers don’t lie. Intuition is immediate pattern recognition that develops this ’sixth sense’ – you’re so familiar with something that you make fast mental shortcuts . After you learn to read, you don’t have to spend that much time on reading out every word letter by letter. If you practice speed-reading, you can even go as far as to simply glance at several chunks of words at once and already understand their meaning without consciously processing them in your head.

. After you learn to read, you don’t have to spend that much time on reading out every word letter by letter. If you practice speed-reading, you can even go as far as to simply glance at several chunks of words at once and already understand their meaning without consciously processing them in your head. When making plans for future projects we should be careful with over-optimism and take into account the risks. We’re biased to think that the failures of others and certain rules don’t apply to us. “That could never happen to me or I’m not going to get cancer even though there’s evidence to show that most people who smoke do get cancer” – It’s an illusion of control and over-confidence.

Reshape Your Evolution

Once you’ve accepted a theory or a belief, you have to stay diligent in noticing its flaws. It’s theory-induced blindness, that makes you want to adopt modules of the world that you can predict. Whenever something happens that contradicts that worldview, you begin to rationalize it away by coming up with a perfectly good explanation or an exception to the rule.

That’s why you have to overcome loss aversion and constantly break your own paradigms and try to seek out new knowledge.

We are terrible at predicting what will make us happy in the future because we can’t possibly know what our future self would be like.

Even though your mind wants to avoid losing something over potentially gaining something new, the fear of regret will come back to haunt you and we know that hindsight is a bitch.

What Would Your Greatest Self Do?

That’s why it’s important to not be blinded by the heat of the moment and to eagerly do what feels right in your gut because it may be misleading. You shouldn’t over-analyze things either.

Instead of wanting to be right or to feel good about yourself, you have to seek out the truth as harsh or painful it may be.

Admitting that you may be wrong or that your actions are incongruent with what you want to accomplish is scary and uncomfortable but overcoming this will liberate you.

Whenever you’re making decisions, ask yourself “What would the greatest version of myself do in this situation? How would the person I aspire to be behave and how would they react?” This will allow you to choose the things that are moving you closer to your goals.

Definitely, check out the book Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. You as a human being are responsible for your own growth and success. Understanding how your brain works is critical for behavioral change.

Stay Empowered

Siim