Thinking, Fast and Slow: System 1 and System 2 examples

System 1 & 2 are terms coined by Kahneman to describe and differentiate between two ways our brain understands and makes sense of the world. System 1 is fast and intuitive, so it can be good at short-term predictions. However it is also biased and can be prone to systematic errors. System 2 is slow, deliberate, and effortful. It is also in charge of self-control (when you didn’t yell out that swear word to the person who cut you off while driving today, your system 2 was hard at work!)

System 1: fast, intuitive, impulsive, little or no effort and no sense of voluntary control. Examples:

Understand simple sentences

Make a “disgust face” when shown a horrible picture

Drive a car on an empty road

Answer to 2 + 2 = ?

Detect hostility in a voice

Complete the phrase “bread and …”

Read words on large billboards

If you’re a chess master: find a strong move in chess

Recognize that “meek and tidy soul with a passion for detail” resembles an occupational stereotype

Additional system 1 examples:

Can execute skilled responses and intuitions after adequate training (which makes sense why I spent the vast majority of pharmacy school painfully immersed in System 2 — as most students are in new subjects — only to find being a pharmacist mostly involves System 1!)

Generates impressions, feelings, and inclinations; when endorsed by System 2 these become beliefs, attitudes, and intentions

Links a sense of cognitive ease to illusions of truth, pleasant feelings, and reduced vigilance

Distinguishes the surprising from the normal

Infers and invents causes and intentions

Neglects ambiguity and suppresses doubt

Biased to believe and confirm

Exaggerates emotional consistency (see halo effect)

Responds more strongly to losses than gains

Overweights low probabilities

Frames decision problems narrowly, in isolation from one another (can’t integrate information to do “big picture” thinking)

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System 2 examples:

Answer 17 x 64 = ?

Focus on the voice of a particular person in a crowded and noisy room

Search memory to identify a surprising sound

Focus attention on the clowns in the circus

Fill out a tax form

Check the validity of a complex logical argument

Park in a narrow space

Monitor the appropriateness of your behaviour in a social situation

Count the occurrence of the letter a in a page of text

Tell someone your phone number (this one surprised me!)

Look for a woman with white hair

Exert self-control

Big-picture thinking, integration of facts and information. Broader and more comprehensive frames on problems or situations (see joint evaluation post).

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When System 2 is engaged and effortful attention is directed at a task, we have a hard time doing something else (for example, making a challenging driving turn and discussing a mentally taxing subject, or trying to solve 17 x 64 while you’re jogging). A dramatic demonstration is provided at the end of this post (one that many of you are familiar and one of my favourite experiments of all time!).

Could this explain why some of the more intelligent people in the world may struggle with what others deem ‘‘common sense’’ or certain social norms? Could their System 2 be so engaged on a regular basis that they miss certain cues or signals in the environment that may feel like common sense to the rest of us?

Kahneman writes “[we] are more likely to learn something by finding surprises in [our] own behaviour than by hearing surprising facts about people in general.”

In the next article, we’ll discuss the term ‘‘ego depletion’’ and how it can arise when we deplete self control (a facet of system 2) and consequences.