21A – Reading Reflection No. 2

1.What was the general theme or argument of the book?

The general theme of the Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman is the explanation of how your brain fights with you and decreases the efficiency of ones economic decisions. Kahneman explains the process by using three explanations, the first of which is that your brain is wired to think in 2 systems. System one is considered subconscious or automatic and rather impulsive. System two is conscious and acts on logic and reason. Kahneman thinks that both systems hardly coexist and fight with each other over control which can prompt mistakes. The second explanation is that your brain is inherently lazy and when given a problem to work out it will choose the quickest and easiest answer and is not always correct causing errors. The third is that humans will often tie their emotions in with their financial decisions  which causes the person to choose less efficient choices financially then someone that only thinks business and financial success when it comes to handling their money. Overall the book breaks down how people think in regards with money and tips on how you can rewire your brain to think about financial decisions more efficiently. 

2) How did the book, in your opinion, connect with and enhance what you are learning in ENT 3003?

I believe that this class has mainly taught me how to think in a different way to by using entrepreneurship tactics and the book has that in common by providing another way to think about how you are making decisions with handling your money and what/how you spend it on.

3) If you had to design an exercise for this class, based on the book you read, what would that exercise involve?

I would set a discussion post with a list of questions that the book provides examples of such as ones like when the book gives the baseball and ball question and shows how your brain will often pick the lazier answer instead of the correct. You would answer the questions before reading the book then after reading you would use the tips and guidelines to re answer the questions using Kahnemans outlook.  

4) What was your biggest surprise or 'aha' moment when reading the book? In other words, what did you learn that differed most from your expectations?

The book explains something known as the Florida effect i really loved this experiment mainly because im from Florida but also how cool it is. They basically took 2 groups and made them arrange randoms words into sentences with one group having words that had to do with old people like wrinkle, retire, and Florida then timed how long it took them to walk down a hall to finish the study and they found that the subjects with old person related words walked much more slowly down the hall subconsciously.