Thinking Fast & Slow. Ch 5-6

We started off with a remark I made about how the system 2´s cognitive laziness even affects names. Long names are usually avoided and that is where nicknames come in. Dylan said this was true but that humans also have neofilia, so they look for the new and different (this sometimes includes long and weird names).

We also talked about the base of priming, which is that priming activates concepts by making them more renowned in one’s mind.

After this the conversation got slightly off track, but that didn’t stop it from being interesting. We talked about depression and how sadness evolved as a way to force us to think. How it is a time to stop and think and how there is a myth that people who have a tendency to be sad are usually wiser. Then we started talking about depressive realism, which is when people have more accurate perceptions when they are depressed. When people are happy, they are more optimistic and are always overestimating the good things and underestimating the bad things that could happen. This makes depressed people more realistic and grounded.

To conclude our dialogue we discussed the main point of these few chapters that we have read so far. These chapters are mostly talking about or identifying system 1, they are demystifying the way we think about our thinking, of which most of the time we have bad conclusions of. (Metacognition).