‘People vote for candidates who are not good for them’, says Nobel laureate

“People vote for candidates who are actually not good for them,” said this Tuesday (30) Israeli psychologist Daniel Kahneman, Nobel Prize in Economics, to an audience of Brazilian businessmen and investors who participated in a B3 event. , the Brazilian Stock Exchange, and data analysis company Neoway, in São Paulo.

Kahneman used the example of an election to explain his best-known research on reasoning and intuition, which resulted in the bestseller “Fast and Slow – Two Ways of Thinking” (Ed. Objetiva, R$49.90).

A world authority on behavioral economics, the psychologist stated that human beings may even be reasonable in their decisions, but they are not rational from a technical point of view, that is, they do not make decisions using data in a statistical way, as computer programs do.

Still picking up points from his theory, Kahneman explained that there are two systems of thought. The first is intuitive and determines most human decisions. It is important that this system is like this for the execution of most actions, such as driving. That’s the quick way of thinking.

“It doesn’t feel like it’s something you’re doing, it feels like it’s something that happens to you,” he said.

When it is necessary to think deeply about different data to make a decision, it is the second system that comes into play. It’s slower thinking that makes—or should make—the complex choices.

“Thinking slowly is something you do. Something you demand of yourself when you need to solve a problem,” he said.

This slow thinking, however, is unnatural and requires effort. Therefore, most of the time, people delegate to the system that thinks fast a task whose complexity would require a more time-consuming evaluation.

The choice of candidates who do not represent the interests of those who vote is an example of the consequences of this.

Kahneman also spoke about the flaws in human judgment and the systematic process of wrong decisions taken in organizations, a topic he addresses in the book Noise: a flaw in human judgment (Ed. Objetiva, R$ 52.90), written in partnership with the professors Cass Sunstein and Olivier Sibony.

Decision makers’ biases and emotions contaminate the decision-making process to the point of turning technical activities into something like a lottery ticket, according to Kahneman.

“There is a study in the United States that shows that judges apply harsher penalties on Mondays when the football teams they support lose over the weekend,” he said.

Algorithms developed on an extensive database, in turn, can alleviate the problem.

Kahneman pointed out, however, that the construction of these algorithms contains assumptions introduced by humans and, therefore, is not necessarily free of bias.

“It’s not the algorithm’s fault, it’s the fault of whoever created the algorithm. You have to be very careful with that,” he said.

He also highlighted the negative effects of “decisions” made by algorithms on human behavior and, once again, cited electoral disputes.

For Kahneman, political polarization is one of the reflections of choices made by algorithms based on clues that users leave on the internet.

“We are surrounded by algorithms and of course they influence us,” Kahneman said.

“Netflix thinks they understand my tastes. I like to watch violent movies and shows when I’m exercising in the morning because they make me train faster. But at night I don’t want to watch those shows and Netflix only gives me violent content . Sometimes when I choose something smarter, Netflix warns me I’m not going to like it.”