“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.”
– William Shakespeare
Behavioral economics is a field that studies the effects of environment, heuristics, social contexts, and psychological influences on decision-making. Daniel Kahneman won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his work applying psychological insights to economic theory. His book “Thinking Fast and Slow” is an essential primer on the subject, as is Dan Ariely's book “Predictably Irrational” (Thinking Fast and Slow. 2011; Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions. 2008). How we make decisions and the environmental factors that influence our choices may play a critical role in health care and anesthesiology. The challenging thing about decisions is that heuristics aid rapid decision-making; however, heuristics can lead us down the wrong path (BMJ 2005;330:781-3). Kahneman described two systems of thinking, System 1, a fast, intuitive,...
