How do you say farewell to a scientific giant like Daniel Kahneman? - opinion

Many of us have read or heard of Thinking Fast and Slow, 2002 Nobel Prize in Economics recipient Daniel Kahneman’s seminal book that summarized his many discoveries. Most of us have an idea of what a scientific giant he was. Some of us know how his work on heuristics and biases; and the way he included human emotion and actual considerations in established decision-making schemes has changed the economic world, among others. Every person now knows, or at least experiences, the reality of behavioral economics

From my end, on the professional level, Kahneman is always on my mind. You would think that medical decision-making is one area where behavioral economics and a deep understanding of human actions are unnecessary. But of course, they are. 

Thanks to Kahneman, hospital systems and HMOs now offer generic drugs to physicians as the first choice, knowing how powerful the status quo bias is. Thanks to Kahneman (and to the former UK Nudge unit), hospitals now present to physicians pre-filled equipment order forms, where mouthwash is prescribed to coma patients, thereby reducing their risk of developing pneumonia (90% of the physicians leave it in the form, while only 45% would add it of their own accord). 

The same goes for patients whom digital health companies coax into taking better care of themselves and who need to be tempted by the immediate gain of a $10 Amazon coupon in order to onboard their health insurance program. Of course, having a program offers a huge benefit, but it’s distant and intangible. This is how people think, fast and slow (mainly slow), and it took a humanist giant and a genius, a psychologist, like Daniel Kahneman (with Amos Tversky of course), to put people’s thoughts, and their emotions, into the equation, in such a completing manner.

Those of us who knew him well, know how he applied his critical thinking first and foremost to his own work, which made it all the more robust. As his last post-doctorate student (2005-2009), he definitely taught me how to think, mainly slowly and thoroughly.

On a personal level, Danny is also always on my mind. Over the years we had many lunches together. The last one was in New York City after he wrote a warm blurb that appeared on the cover of my book on medical decision-making. After a long discussion of findings and implications, he looked at me and said “You grew nicely.” It sounds better in Hebrew, and we always spoke Hebrew among ourselves. I am the same age as his daughter, so, coming from him, a man who did not gush, this was a huge compliment. If I grew nicely, he had a large part in it. 

Understanding human behavior

Without a doubt, Kahneman, who loved Israel deeply, and ached for it deeply, most definitely had an enormous part in the exponential growth and influence of the understanding of human behavior. May he rest in peace.

The writer is a professor at the Ono Academic College, Israel. She is author of Your Life Depends on It: What You Can Do to Make Better Choices about Your Health, published by Basic Books (Hachette), NY.