How Our Brains Think In Two Ways
Recall the last time you were in the middle of room at a large party or event.
Everyones speaking loudly, there’s music playing in the background, there are multiple conversations happening at once. You’re in the middle of your own conversation with a group of people, or maybe just one person.
Suddenly, someone across the other side of the room, with a voice no louder than anything else mentions your name. You instantly hear it and are drawn to the voice, suddenly, you’re trying to work out whats being said and why your name may have been mentioned, taking you totally away from the conversation you’re supposed to be having.
Many of us can recognise this moment, yet few of us stop to think why, or how, we were able to pick up our name so clearly out of a whole room of noise, especially as we weren’t actively listening out for our name and focused on something entirely different.
Here we will unpack how our brain has two systems to think and process information. We’ll discover how most of our brain is on without us realising, which can often nudge us into poor decisions.
Our brains think in two systems
Daniel Kahneman, an American-Iserali psychologist, researcher and Nobel prize winner, along with his various colleagues over decades of research, has devoted his life’s work to understanding human judgement and decision making. In his now famous book Thinking, Fast and Slow, Kahneman unpacks a core idea of thinking called System 1 and System 2.
What is System 1 thinking?
System 1 thinking can be thought of as instinctive thinking. It’s like the brains radar, its always on when we’re awake and scanning our environment for information. This radar of System 1 is mostly our unconscious, as the majority of information it takes in we are completely unaware of. This is where you get the feeling of instinct from, the rush of fear when something unexpected happens and the impulsive actions you take without thinking.
System 1 is highly efficient, influenced by emotion, and runs on auto pilot, yet it influences over 90% of the choices we make in life. The benefits of this have meant that we’ve been able to survive for so long as a species, yet the downside is it can lead us to making decisions without properly thinking through the problem.
It is the radar of System 1 at work when you instantly recognise your name at a loud party, even if you weren’t trying to listen out for it.
What is System 2 thinking?
System 2 thinking is what we think thinking is. It’s what we use when we encounter a difficult problem or scenario, having to concentrate hard to get to a decision.
When System 1 recognises a difficult problem, is confused, or cant instantly respond to whats happening, it hands off responsibility for System 2 to solve. Often, this hand off is accompanied by a suggestion on how System 2 should answer the problem, to which System 2 will agree with or question and solve.
System 2 will avoid making a decision because it uses a lot of energy, and temporary turns off the radar of System 1, which exposes us to potential threats. System 2 can also only make one decision at a time, unlike its partner System 1 which can process many data points at once. This often means that System 2 will accept whatever System 1 is suggesting to get out of making a decision itself.
We commonly find System 2 thinking in tests at school when we encounter a difficult question. We close our eyes, block out external noise, put our head down and take the time to think through the decision; slowly, sequentially and methodically. We become blind to anything else that may be happening in the room.
Because of how slow System 2 is, and the energy that it takes to activate it, the brain will always opts towards System 1 to make decisions. Although System 1 acts faster, it can leave us exposed to making irrational, foolish decisions that are driven by emotion and gut feels, rather than logical reasoning.
Key takeouts for how our brains think using two systems:
We’ve survived by thinking with System 1: Humans shouldn’t be considered irrational, but they are hardwired in a way which creates many irrational decisions, even when we think we are being rational. This is due to System 1 thinking and is a core reason of human evolution and survival, the ability to think quickly and spot potential threats has meant humans have survived and thrived on earth to become the top of the food chain.
The two systems of thinking influence our decisions: It’s important to understand how much System 1 dominated decisions and how we need to be aware of its influence. The two Systems work separately, but are also closely connected and influenced by each other.
Mental Models help our System 2: Many of the mental models in this project fall within human judgement and decision making, therefore many of these mental models guide System 1 and particularly System 2 thinking. This why the power of mental models are so strong, it allows us to use frameworks that help us make a decision faster. They make the job for System 2 easier so we can use it more often to make better decisions.