Hey Goooodmen! This is Suke.
This week I’d like to share with you an urban legend about a joke.
-At the first meeting after the change of the leaders of Japan and the U.S.
Japanese Prime Minister
“who are you?”(he wanted to say “how are you?”)
U.S. President.
(The Japanese leader made a joke right from the start.) “I am Hilary Clinton’s husband.”
Prime Minister of Japan
(? “the How are you?” is answered with “I’m fine thank you, and you?” So…)
“Me, too!!!”
Ha-ha-ha!
The President of the United States must have thought, “This prime minister can do it.
—
Okay, let’s move on to this week’s main topic.
This week I was reading a book on behavioral economics and an Adlerian psychology book called “The Courage to Be Disliked”.
This book, “The Courage to Be Disliked,” is very famous, so you may have already read it.
First, let me explain behavioral economics.
In traditional economics, human beings are considered to be rational beings (homo economicus).
And conventional traditional economics has treated anomalies as exceptions to the rule, events that occur in the real world for some reason and cannot be rationally explained that are detached from predictions derived from academic studies.
But leaving anomalies as exceptions is also problematic. Therefore, a movement has emerged to think about the economy not by considering humans as rational beings, but as limitedly rational beings, and to think about the economy based on the assumption of this limited rationality that humans possess.
This is behavioral economics.
In 2000, psychologists Keith Stanovich and Richard West proposed a model of human cognitive function called the dual process system.
They divided human cognitive function into System 1 and System 2.
System 1 is the cognitive function related to our intuition and is generally characterized by a high speed of judgment. Its judgments are made almost automatically and unconsciously, but it is also characterized by being emotional.
System 2, on the other hand, is involved in our logical thinking and is generally characterized by a slow decision-making process. It also requires conscious work to make that judgment. However, it is also characterized by the suppression of emotions.
We often make decisions based on the intuition of System 1. This is because it is easier and less time-consuming. However, when the intuition of System 1 is incorrect, System 2 appropriately corrects the error and guides us to the correct decision. However, there are cases where this correction does not work. If System 1 makes a mistake and System 2 fails to correct the mistake, people will make irrational judgments.
This intuition of ours, which we call heuristics, is a prominent problem that leads people to irrationality. That is the Linda problem created by Kahneman and Tversky.
The Problem
Linda is 31 years old, single, outspoken, and very intelligent. In college, she majored in philosophy. As a student, she was deeply interested in issues such as discrimination and social justice and participated in anti-nuclear demonstrations.
Which of the following is more likely to be true of Linda today?
(1) Linda is currently a bank teller.
(2) Linda is currently a bank teller and a member of the feminist movement.
Which do you think is more likely?
Many people choose (2).
Think carefully, however. It’s time to put System 2 to work.
We learned this in high school in the field of “sets”.
Which probability is higher that Linda is a bank teller compared to the probability that Linda is both a bank teller and in the feminist movement?
Using System 2, we know that the probability that Linda is in situation (1) is higher.
But our intuition causes us to choose the less probable (2).
And this is the problem that could not be solved by conventional economics, which is based on the model of rational human beings, and is the phenomenon of “irrational human beings” that behavioral economics deals with.
Behavioral economics is currently being used in marketing and many other areas, and I would like to study it more and more.
And the other theme of this issue, “The Courage to Be Disliked,” is a book written like Plato’s Dialogues on Adlerian psychology, and it contains the essence of the book.
Adler’s ideas are the antithesis of our common sense, and the author also said, “It is as difficult as imagining a summer heat wave in the middle of winter.
Adler rejects the causal theory that the past affects the present and shapes the present, and says that we use past trauma as an excuse for not having the courage to change.
This inability to have the courage to change is called the maintenance bias in behavioral economics, and it is a characteristic of the irrational human creature.
Adlerian psychology, also called the psychology of courage, tells us that we can still be happy if we change our perceptions.
I was very impressed with this book. It could be a life-changing book that gives me a guideline to solve my long-standing problems.
It was the same with my favorite Buddha’s Buddhism.
The Buddha also tells us to see things correctly.
The way we see things can make us happy.
There is still commonality in the world that the world’s great thinkers have thought through in System 2.
I hope everyone will take this opportunity to think about what happiness is and how you can become happy!
See you soon!
Have a happy next week.
▼Sorry, couldn’t find a link to the English version.