Book SummaryThe Undoing Project, by Michael Lewis

1-Page Summary1-Page Book Summary of The Undoing Project

If you think you understand why you make the choices you do, you’re probably wrong. The human mind is far more prone to error than we’d like to believe, which we know thanks to the groundbreaking research by two Israeli psychologists, Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky. Their collaboration produced ideas that reshaped the way psychology understands the mind.

The story of Tversky and Kahneman’s lives is as riveting as the truths they uncovered. On the surface, the two men couldn’t have been more different. Kahneman was reserved and given to self-doubt, while Tversky was brash, outgoing, and magnetic. Yet both had a deep interest in the workings of the mind and were insightful, inquisitive thinkers with a knack for seeing flaws in ideas that everyone else took as given. They identified systematic ways the mind fools itself, why we make irrational decisions, and how we reshape reality when the truth is too...

The Undoing Project Summary A Revolutionary Duo

Over the years, there have been collaborations, such as the Wright Brothers or Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, whose combined influence far exceeded what they would have achieved on their own. In psychology, Michael Lewis suggests that the quintessential duo was Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky. As individuals, they were unconventional thinkers, but together they amplified each other’s strengths, allowing them to upend behavioral psychology and change the way we understand the foibles of the human mind. In this section, we’ll examine Kahneman’s upbringing and early work, followed by Tversky’s parallel path, the beginning of their collaborative process, and the differences that eventually drove them apart.

Daniel Kahneman

According to Lewis, the more reserved of the two was Daniel Kahneman, a Holocaust survivor who, from an early age, developed an interest in human behavior, particularly in our capacity for error. He wondered what his...

The Undoing Project Summary Three Major Breakthroughs

While describing the history of Kahneman and Tversky’s collaboration, Lewis shows that between 1969 and 1979 they overturned our understanding of how we make decisions not once, but three times. The lessons from that decade of research call into question much of what we think about what we think. Tversky and Kahneman revealed that the mind relies on impressions over logic, that we can be tricked into making illogical decisions based on how choices are presented, and that given the chance, our minds rewrite reality in order to avoid the pain of regret. We’ll explore each of these ideas in detail.

The Theory of Heuristics

Kahneman and Tversky’s first breakthrough was determining that when making judgments, the mind doesn’t unconsciously calculate statistics, as was the common belief of the time. Instead, they showed that the mind applies stories and stereotypes through processes that Tversky and Kahneman called heuristics. In short, our minds use a variety of shortcuts to make guesses when we don’t have enough information.

In their research, they identified three separate heuristics that systematically cloud human judgment—**representativeness, availability, and...

Shortform Exercise: Reflect on the Power of Collaboration

Michael Lewis contends that Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky accomplished more together than they would have alone. Think back on projects in your own life that involved collaboration.

In group projects, do you feel like an equal contributor, or do you take on a leadership role? Which of the two do you feel is more empowering, and why?

Shortform Exercise: How Strong Are Your Heuristics?

Tversky and Kahneman developed the theory that our minds use a variety of shortcuts to make guesses when we don’t have all the information. How good of a guesser are you? The answers to these questions will be listed below. (Don’t peek.)

Texas, the largest state in the contiguous US, is divided into 254 counties. Brazil is the largest country in South America. Without looking it up, estimate the number of separate states that make up the country of Brazil.