Editing Daniel Kahneman (section)

== Academic career ==

=== Cognitive psychology ===
Kahneman received a bachelor's degree in psychology and mathematics from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1954 and a degree in psychology from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1961, and went on to become a lecturer in psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem later in 1961<ref name="NobelPrize Bio 2002"/> and was promoted to senior lecturer in 1966. His early work focused on visual perception and attention.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Kahneman |first1=Daniel |last2=Beatty |first2=Jackson |date=1966 |title=Pupil Diameter and Load on Memory |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1720478 |journal=Science |volume=154 |issue=3756 |pages=1583–1585 |doi=10.1126/science.154.3756.1583 |jstor=1720478 |pmid=5924930 |bibcode=1966Sci...154.1583K |s2cid=22762466 |issn=0036-8075 |access-date=March 12, 2024 |archive-date=March 12, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240312165328/https://www.jstor.org/stable/1720478 |url-status=live }}</ref> From 1965 to 1966, he was a visiting scientist at the [[University of Michigan]], a fellow at the Center for Cognitive Studies and a lecturer in [[cognitive psychology]] at [[Harvard University]] in 1966 to 1967, and during the summers of 1968 and 1969 he was a visiting scientist at the [[MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit|Applied Psychology Research Unit]] in [[Cambridge]]. His work on attention led to a book, ''Attention and Effort'', in which he presented a theory of effort based on studies of pupillary changes during mental tasks.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kahneman |first=Daniel |title=Attention and effort |date=1973 |publisher=Prentice-Hall |isbn=9780130505187 }}</ref> Kahneman also developed rules of counterfactual thinking, and published "Norm Theory" with Dale Miller.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Kahneman |first1=Daniel |last2=Miller |first2=Dale T. |date=April 1986 |title=Norm theory: Comparing reality to its alternatives. |url=https://doi.apa.org/doi/10.1037/0033-295X.93.2.136 |journal=The Psychological Review |language=en |volume=93 |issue=2 |pages=136–153 |doi=10.1037/0033-295X.93.2.136 |issn=1939-1471 |access-date=March 12, 2024 |archive-date=May 17, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220517223511/https://doi.apa.org/doi/10.1037/0033-295X.93.2.136 |url-status=live }}</ref>

=== Judgment and decision-making ===
Kahneman's lengthy collaboration with [[Amos Tversky]] began in 1969, after Tversky gave a guest lecture at one of Kahneman's seminars at Hebrew University.<ref name="NobelPrize Bio 2002"/> Their first jointly written paper, "Belief in the Law of Small Numbers," was published in 1971. They published seven journal articles in the years 1971 to 1979. They flipped a coin to determine whose name would appear first on their initial paper and alternated thereafter.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Leonhardt |first1=David |title=From Michael Lewis, the Story of Two Friends Who Changed How We Think About the Way We Think |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/06/books/review/michael-lewis-undoing-project.html |work=The New York Times |date=December 6, 2016 |url-access=subscription |access-date=March 16, 2024 |archive-date=March 15, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240315184840/https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/06/books/review/michael-lewis-undoing-project.html |url-status=live }}</ref> Their article "Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases" introduced the notion of [[anchoring (cognitive bias)|anchoring]]. Kahneman and Tversky spent an entire year at an office in the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem, writing this paper. They spent more than three years revising an early version of [[prospect theory]] that was completed in early 1975. The final version was published in 1979 in ''[[Econometrica]]'', the leading economic journal at the time.<ref name=":0" /> That paper became the most cited in economics. Its success was due to its synthesis of ideas and results discussed at the time about economic behavior under risk in a simple model, whose predictions were systematically supported by psychological experiments.

The pair also teamed with [[Paul Slovic]] to edit a compilation entitled ''Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases'' (1982) that was a summary of their work and of other recent advances that had influenced their thinking. Kahneman was ultimately awarded the [[Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics]] in 2002 "for having integrated insights from psychological research into economic science, especially concerning human judgment and decision-making under uncertainty".<ref>{{Cite web |title=Daniel Kahneman |url=https://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/bios/Kahneman.html |access-date=March 13, 2024 |publisher=Econlib |archive-date=November 12, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231112033828/https://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/bios/Kahneman.html |url-status=live }}</ref> In the introduction of ''[[Thinking, Fast and Slow]]'', Kahneman acknowledges and shares that "our collaboration on judgment and decision making was the reason for the Nobel Prize that I received in 2002, which [[Amos Tversky]] would have shared had he not died, aged fifty-nine, in 1996".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kahneman |first=Daniel |title=Thinking, Fast and Slow |publisher=Doubleday Canada |year=2011 |isbn=978-0-385-67651-9 |pages=10 |language=English}}</ref> Kahneman left Hebrew University in 1978 to take a position at the [[University of British Columbia]].<ref name="NobelPrize Bio 2002"/> In 2021, Kahneman co-authored a book with [[Olivier Sibony]] and [[Cass Sunstein]], titled ''[[Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment]].''<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Kahneman |first1=Daniel |title=Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment |last2=Sibony |first2=Olivier |last3=Sunstein |first3=Cass |date=May 16, 2021 |publisher=Little, Brown Spark |isbn=9780008308995 |pages=37–38 |oclc=1242782025 }}</ref>

The Harvard psychologist and author [[Steven Pinker]] said of Kahneman that: "His central message could not be more important, namely, that human reason left to its own devices is apt to engage in a number of fallacies and systematic errors, so if we want to make better decisions in our personal lives and as a society, we ought to be aware of these biases and seek workarounds. That's a powerful and important discovery."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Jr |first=Robert D. Hershey |date=March 27, 2024 |title=Daniel Kahneman, Who Plumbed the Psychology of Economics, Dies at 90 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/27/business/daniel-kahneman-dead.html |access-date=March 29, 2024 |work=The New York Times |issn=0362-4331 |archive-date=March 27, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240327153103/https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/27/business/daniel-kahneman-dead.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

=== Behavioral economics ===
Kahneman and Tversky both spent the academic year 1977 to 1978 at [[Stanford University]], Kahneman as a fellow at the school's [[Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences]] interdisciplinary research lab and Tversky with a visiting appointment at the university's psychology department.<ref name=":8">{{Cite web |date=July 11, 2018 |title=CASBS in the History of Behavioral Economics |publisher= Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences |url=https://casbs.stanford.edu/casbs-history-behavioral-economics |access-date=March 13, 2024 |archive-date=March 13, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240313204925/https://casbs.stanford.edu/casbs-history-behavioral-economics |url-status=live }}</ref> [[Richard Thaler]] was a visiting professor at the Stanford branch of the [[National Bureau of Economic Research]] during that same year.<ref name=":8" /> According to Kahneman: "We soon became friends, and have ever since had a considerable influence on each other's thinking."<ref name="NobelPrize Bio 2002" /> Building in part on prospect theory and Kahneman and Tversky's body of work, Thaler published "Toward a Positive Theory of Consumer Choice" in 1980, a paper which Kahneman called "the founding text of behavioral economics".<ref name="NobelPrize Bio 2002" /> Richard Thaler obtained a grant from the [[Russell Sage Foundation]] to spend the academic year 1984 to 1985 with Kahneman at the University of British Columbia.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Daniel Kahneman and Richard Thaler on the Beginning of Behavioral Economics |publisher= RSF www.russellsage.org |url=https://www.russellsage.org/daniel-kahneman-and-richard-thaler-beginning-behavioral-economics |access-date=March 12, 2024 |archive-date=March 12, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240312163343/https://www.russellsage.org/daniel-kahneman-and-richard-thaler-beginning-behavioral-economics |url-status=live }}</ref> Together with Kahneman's friend Jack Knetsch they worked on two papers on fairness and on the endowment effect.<ref>{{Cite web |title=In Remembrance |url=https://www.benefitcostanalysis.org/in-remembrance |access-date=March 12, 2024 |website=www.benefitcostanalysis.org |archive-date=November 11, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231111035543/https://www.benefitcostanalysis.org/in-remembrance |url-status=live }}</ref>

From 1979 to 1986, Kahneman published multiple articles and chapters.<ref name=":5">{{Cite web |title=Publications |url=https://kahneman.scholar.princeton.edu/publications |access-date=March 12, 2024 |website=Daniel Kahneman |language=en |archive-date=March 12, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240312165329/https://kahneman.scholar.princeton.edu/publications |url-status=live }}</ref> Kahneman published one chapter during the years 1987 to 1989.<ref name=":5" /><ref>{{Cite book |last=Kahneman |first=Daniel |date=1988 |volume=314 |editor-last=Tietz |editor-first=Reinhard |editor2-last=Albers |editor2-first=Wulf |editor3-last=Selten |editor3-first=Reinhard |title=Bounded Rational Behavior in Experimental Games and Markets |publisher=Springer |pages=11–18 |doi=10.1007/978-3-642-48356-1_2 |isbn=9783642483561 }}</ref> A few papers on decision making appeared after that hiatus, notably cumulative prospect theory, and an explanation of risk-taking by unrealistic "bold forecasts", but the focus of Kahneman's research from that time was the study of subjective experience.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Tversky |first1=Amos |last2=Kahneman |first2=Daniel |date=October 1, 1992 |title=Advances in prospect theory: Cumulative representation of uncertainty |url=https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00122574 |journal=Journal of Risk and Uncertainty |volume=5 |issue=4 |pages=297–323 |doi=10.1007/BF00122574 |issn=1573-0476}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Kahneman |first1=Daniel |last2=Lovallo |first2=Dan |date=1993 |title=Timid Choices and Bold Forecasts: A Cognitive Perspective on Risk Taking |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2661517 |journal=Management Science |volume=39 |issue=1 |pages=17–31 |doi=10.1287/mnsc.39.1.17 |jstor=2661517 |s2cid=53685999 |issn=0025-1909 |access-date=March 12, 2024 |archive-date=March 12, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240312163342/https://www.jstor.org/stable/2661517 |url-status=live }}</ref>

=== Variants of utility ===
Economists distinguish experienced utility—in the sense of [[Jeremy Bentham]] and [[utilitarianism]]—from decision utility, which is the utility explained by and derived from choices.<ref name=":2">{{cite book |last1=Kahneman |first1=Daniel |title=Thinking, Fast and Slow |date=2011 |publisher=Farrar, Straus & Giroux |isbn=9780374533557}}</ref><ref name=":3">{{Cite journal |last1=Kahneman |first1=D. |last2=Wakker |first2=P. P. |last3=Sarin |first3=R. |date=May 1, 1997 |title=Back to Bentham? Explorations of Experienced Utility |url=https://doi.org/10.1162/003355397555235 |journal=The Quarterly Journal of Economics |volume=112 |issue=2 |pages=375–406 |doi=10.1162/003355397555235 |hdl=1765/23011 |issn=0033-5533|hdl-access=free }}</ref> The experienced utility of an episode is formalized as the temporal integration of momentary utility.<ref name=":3" />

Kahneman further distinguished the expected utility from both remembered and predicted utility. Predicted utility (better known as [[affective forecasting]])<ref>{{Citation |last1=Wilson |first1=Timothy D |title=Affective Forecasting |date=2003 |pages=345–411 |url=https://doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2601(03)01006-2 |access-date=March 13, 2024 |publisher=Elsevier |doi=10.1016/s0065-2601(03)01006-2 |last2=Gilbert |first2=Daniel T|series=Advances in Experimental Social Psychology |volume=35 |isbn=978-0-12-015235-3 }}</ref> is the predicted experienced utility for a future experience.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Kahneman |first1=Daniel |last2=Snell |first2=Jackie |date=July 1992 |title=Predicting a changing taste: Do people know what they will like? |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bdm.3960050304 |journal=Journal of Behavioral Decision Making |language=en |volume=5 |issue=3 |pages=187–200 |doi=10.1002/bdm.3960050304 |issn=0894-3257 |access-date=March 13, 2024 |archive-date=March 13, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240313164704/https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bdm.3960050304 |url-status=live }}</ref> Remembered utility is the evaluation of a past experience.<ref name=":3" /><ref name=":2" /> The essential finding of many experiments is that memories of experienced utility are systematically inaccurate. Furthermore, the remembered evaluation of past episodes (remembered utility) is the best predictor of subsequent decision utility.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Fredrickson |first1=Barbara L. |last2=Kahneman |first2=Daniel |date=1993 |title=Duration neglect in retrospective evaluations of affective episodes |url=https://doi.apa.org/doi/10.1037/0022-3514.65.1.45 |journal=Journal of Personality and Social Psychology |volume=65 |issue=1 |pages=45–55 |doi=10.1037/0022-3514.65.1.45 |pmid=8355141 |s2cid=10576590 |issn=1939-1315 |access-date=March 13, 2024 |archive-date=March 27, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240327184532/https://scholar.google.com/scholar_casa?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpsycnet.apa.org%2FdoiLanding%3Fdoi%3D10.1037%2F0022-3514.65.1.45%26 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Kahneman |first1=Daniel |last2=Fredrickson |first2=Barbara L. |last3=Schreiber |first3=Charles A. |last4=Redelmeier |first4=Donald A. |date=November 1993 |title=When More Pain Is Preferred to Less: Adding a Better End |url=http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9280.1993.tb00589.x |journal=Psychological Science |language=en |volume=4 |issue=6 |pages=401–405 |doi=10.1111/j.1467-9280.1993.tb00589.x |s2cid=8032668 |issn=0956-7976 |access-date=March 13, 2024 |archive-date=March 26, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240326045404/https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9280.1993.tb00589.x |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Redelmeier |first1=Donald A |last2=Kahneman |first2=Daniel |date=July 1996 |title=Patients' memories of painful medical treatments: real-time and retrospective evaluations of two minimally invasive procedures |url=https://journals.lww.com/00006396-199607000-00002 |journal=Pain |volume=66 |issue=1 |pages=3–8 |doi=10.1016/0304-3959(96)02994-6 |pmid=8857625 |s2cid=1522819 |issn=0304-3959 |access-date=March 13, 2024 |archive-date=March 27, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240327184531/https://journals.lww.com/pain/abstract/1996/07000/patients__memories_of_painful_medical_treatments_.2.aspx |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name=":3" />

One of the cognitive biases of remembered utility is called the [[peak–end rule]]. It affects how people remember the pleasantness or unpleasantness of experiences. It states that a person's overall impression of past events is determined, for the most part, not by the total pleasure and suffering it contained, but by how it felt at its peak and at its end.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Do |first1=Amy M. |last2=Rupert |first2=Alexander V. |last3=Wolford |first3=George |date=February 1, 2008 |title=Evaluations of pleasurable experiences: The peak–end rule |journal=Psychonomic Bulletin & Review |language=en |volume=15 |issue=1 |pages=96–98 |doi=10.3758/PBR.15.1.96 |issn=1531-5320 |pmid=18605486 |doi-access=free}}</ref> For example, the memory of a painful colonoscopy is improved if the examination is extended by three minutes in which the scope is still inside but not moved anymore, resulting in a moderately uncomfortable sensation. This extended colonoscopy, despite involving more pain overall, is remembered less negatively due to the reduced pain at the end. This even increases the likelihood for the patient to return for subsequent procedures.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Redelmeier |first1=Donald A. |last2=Katz |first2=Joel |last3=Kahneman |first3=Daniel |date=July 2003 |title=Memories of colonoscopy: a randomized trial |url=https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12855328/ |journal=Pain |volume=104 |issue=1–2 |pages=187–194 |doi=10.1016/s0304-3959(03)00003-4 |issn=0304-3959 |pmid=12855328 |s2cid=206055276 |hdl-access=free |hdl=10315/7959 |access-date=February 23, 2021 |archive-date=April 14, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210414040902/https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12855328/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

==== Happiness and life satisfaction ====
The analysis of the experienced utility of short episodes readily extends to the broader notion of happiness. This connection led Kahneman, together with [[Ed Diener]] and [[Norbert Schwarz]] to organize a workshop, which yielded a book that covered a range of topics in hedonic psychology, which they defined as "the study of what makes experiences and life pleasant or unpleasant.<ref name=":4">{{Cite book |title=Well-being: the foundations of hedonic psychology |date=1999 |publisher=Russell Sage Foundation |isbn=9780871544247 |editor-last=Kahneman |editor-first=Daniel |editor-last2=Diener |editor-first2=Ed |editor-last3=Schwarz |editor-first3=Norbert}}</ref> It is concerned with feelings of pleasure and pain, of interest and boredom, of joy and sorrow, and of satisfaction and dissatisfaction. It is also concerned with the whole range of circumstances, from the biological to the societal, that occasion suffering and enjoyment.<ref name=":4" />

Most studies of well-being use retrospective questions such as "How happy are you these days?". A smaller number of studies use experience sampling, in which people are probed at random times during the day, and asked to rate their experience of the present moment. Much later (source TED talk) Kahneman described this distinction in terms of two selves: the experiencing self, which is aware of pleasure and pain as they are happening, and the remembering self, which shows the aggregate pleasure and pain over an extended period of time.<ref>{{Citation |last=Kahneman |first=Daniel |title=The riddle of experience vs. memory |date=March 1, 2010 |url=https://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_kahneman_the_riddle_of_experience_vs_memory |access-date=March 13, 2024 |archive-date=November 4, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111104150221/http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/daniel_kahneman_the_riddle_of_experience_vs_memory.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

Kahneman initially believed that the happiness of the experiencing self is the true measure of well-being. Around 2000, he assembled a team consisting of [[Alan Krueger]], David Schkade, Norbert Schwarz and Arthur Stone. The mission of the team was to create a measure of experienced happiness that economists could take seriously. As a more practical substitute to the experience sampling techniques of the time, the team developed The Day-Reconstruction Method, in which participants described the day as a sequence of episodes, and rated the experience on several affective dimensions.<ref name=":6">{{Cite journal |last1=Stone |first1=Arthur A. |last2=Schwartz |first2=Joseph E. |last3=Schkade |first3=David |last4=Schwarz |first4=Norbert |last5=Krueger |first5=Alan |last6=Kahneman |first6=Daniel |date=2006 |title=A population approach to the study of emotion: Diurnal rhythms of a working day examined with the day reconstruction method. |url=https://doi.apa.org/doi/10.1037/1528-3542.6.1.139 |journal=Emotion |volume=6 |issue=1 |pages=139–149 |doi=10.1037/1528-3542.6.1.139 |pmid=16637757 |issn=1931-1516 |access-date=March 13, 2024 |archive-date=March 27, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240327184528/https://psycnet.apa.org/api/request/session.refresh |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Kahneman |first1=Daniel |last2=Krueger |first2=Alan B |date=February 1, 2006 |title=Developments in the Measurement of Subjective Well-Being |url=https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/089533006776526030 |journal=Journal of Economic Perspectives |volume=20 |issue=1 |pages=3–24 |doi=10.1257/089533006776526030 |issn=0895-3309 |access-date=March 13, 2024 |archive-date=March 27, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240327184354/https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/089533006776526030 |url-status=live }}</ref> Kahneman also participated in the formulation of the well-being module of the Gallup World Poll.<ref>{{Cite web |last= |first= |date=February 10, 2005 |title=Are You Happy Now? |url=https://news.gallup.com/businessjournal/14872/Happy-Now.aspx |access-date=March 13, 2024 |website=Gallup.com |language=en |archive-date=March 13, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240313175106/https://news.gallup.com/businessjournal/14872/Happy-Now.aspx |url-status=live }}</ref> The effort to measure experienced happiness was only partly successful. Measures of affect are routinely included in well-being questionnaires, but the idea that experienced happiness is the better concept did not hold. Kahneman defined happiness in terms of "what I experience here and now",<ref>{{Cite news |title=Why Nobel Prize Winner Daniel Kahneman Gave Up on Happiness |url=https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2018-10-07/ty-article-magazine/.premium/why-nobel-prize-winner-daniel-kahneman-gave-up-on-happiness/0000017f-e650-df5f-a17f-ffde36ed0000 |access-date=January 20, 2023 |publisher=Haaretz |archive-date=January 20, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230120102744/https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2018-10-07/ty-article-magazine/.premium/why-nobel-prize-winner-daniel-kahneman-gave-up-on-happiness/0000017f-e650-df5f-a17f-ffde36ed0000 |url-status=live }}</ref> but says that in reality humans pursue life satisfaction,<ref>{{Citation |title=Daniel Kahneman on wellbeing and how to measure it {{!}} University of Oxford 2022 | date=October 7, 2022 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf8rLu6vKgM |access-date=November 16, 2022 |language=en |archive-date=November 16, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221116164022/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf8rLu6vKgM |url-status=live }}</ref> which "is connected to a large degree to social yardsticks—achieving goals, meeting expectations".<ref>{{Cite news |last=Mandel |first=Amir |date=October 7, 2018 |title=Why Nobel Prize Winner Daniel Kahneman Gave Up on Happiness |url=https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-why-nobel-prize-winner-daniel-kahneman-gave-up-on-happiness-1.6528513 |newspaper=Haaretz |access-date=December 29, 2018 |archive-date=October 8, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181008135016/https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-why-nobel-prize-winner-daniel-kahneman-gave-up-on-happiness-1.6528513 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Livni |first=Ephrat |date=December 21, 2018 |title=A Nobel Prize-winning psychologist says most people don't really want to be happy |url=https://qz.com/1503207/a-nobel-prize-winning-psychologist-defines-happiness-versus-satisfaction/ |website=Quartz |access-date=December 29, 2018 |archive-date=April 17, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210417094658/https://qz.com/1503207/a-nobel-prize-winning-psychologist-defines-happiness-versus-satisfaction/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://fs.blog/knowledge-podcast/daniel-kahneman/|title=Daniel Kahneman: Putting Your Intuition on Ice [The Knowledge Project Ep. #68]|access-date=October 15, 2021|archive-date=October 26, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211026204816/https://fs.blog/knowledge-podcast/daniel-kahneman/|url-status=live}}</ref>

==== Focusing illusion ====
With David Schkade, Kahneman developed the notion of the [[focusing illusion]] to explain in part the mistakes people make when estimating the effects of different scenarios on their future happiness (also known as [[affective forecasting]], which has been studied extensively by [[Daniel Gilbert (psychologist)|Daniel Gilbert]]).<ref name=":6" /> The "illusion" occurs when people consider the impact of one specific factor on their overall happiness, they tend to greatly exaggerate the importance of that factor, while overlooking the numerous other factors that would in most cases have a greater impact.<ref name=":7">{{cite journal |last1=Schkade |first1=David A. |author1-link= |last2=Kahneman |first2=Daniel |date=May 6, 2016 |title=Does Living in California Make People Happy? A Focusing Illusion in Judgments of Life Satisfaction |url=http://web.mit.edu/curhan/www/docs/Articles/biases/9_Psychological_Science_340_(Schkade).pdf |journal=Psychological Science |language=en |volume=9 |issue=5 |pages=340–346 |doi=10.1111/1467-9280.00066 |issn=1467-9280 |s2cid=14091201 |access-date=February 26, 2021 |archive-date=January 25, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210125075931/http://web.mit.edu/curhan/www/docs/Articles/biases/9_Psychological_Science_340_(Schkade).pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> In what has been considered his most famous dictum,<ref>{{Cite web |date=2024-04-10 |title=There are three sides to every story |url=https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/there-are-three-sides-to-every-story/ |access-date=2024-04-14 |website=The Spectator Australia |language=en-US}}</ref> Kahneman described the illusion in ''Thinking, Fast and Slow'', writing: “Nothing in life is as important as you think it is when you are thinking about it.”<ref name=":2" />

A good example is provided by Kahneman and Schkade's 1998 paper, "Does living in California make people happy? A focusing illusion in judgments of life satisfaction". In that paper, students in the [[Midwest]] and in [[California]] reported similar levels of life satisfaction, but the Midwesterners thought their Californian peers would be happier. The only distinguishing information the Midwestern students had when making these judgments was the fact that their hypothetical peers lived in California. Thus, they "focused" on this distinction, thereby overestimating the effect of the weather in California on its residents' satisfaction with life.<ref name=":7" />

=== Teaching ===
Kahneman taught at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem from 1970–1978. He then became a professor at the University of British Columbia, leaving in 1986. Next, he taught at the University of California, Berkeley, from 1986 to 1994.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Daniel Kahneman |url=https://kahneman.scholar.princeton.edu/ |access-date=November 20, 2023 |website=kahneman.scholar.princeton.edu |archive-date=November 20, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231120052616/https://kahneman.scholar.princeton.edu/ |url-status=live }}</ref> Thereafter, Kahneman was a senior scholar and faculty member emeritus at [[Princeton University]]'s [[Princeton University Department of Psychology|Department of Psychology]] and [[Princeton School of Public and International Affairs]]. He was also a fellow at Hebrew University and a [[The Gallup Organization|Gallup]] Senior Scientist.<ref name="Gallup Bio" />