Thinking, Fast and Slow

by Daniel Kahneman

The framing study yielded three main findings: A region that is commonly associated with emotional arousal (the amygdala) was most likely to be active when subjects’ choices conformed to the frame. This is just as we would expect if the emotionally loaded words KEEP and LOSE produce an immediate tendency to approach the sure thing (when it is framed as a gain) or avoid it (when it is framed as a loss). The amygdala is accessed very rapidly by emotional stimuli—and it is a likely suspect for involvement in System 1. A brain region known to be associated with conflict and self-control (the anterior cingulate) was more active when subjects did not do what comes naturally—when they chose the sure thing in spite of its being labeled LOSE. Resisting the inclination of System 1 apparently involves conflict. The most “rational” subjects—those who were the least susceptible to framing effects—showed enhanced activity in a frontal area of the brain that is implicated in combining emotion and reasoning to guide decisions. Remarkably, the “rational” individuals were not those who showed the strongest neural evidence of conflict. It appears that these elite participants were (often, not always) reality-bound with little conflict.