Book: Think slowly... Solve quickly

Main function of System 1 - track and update your personal model of the world, describing that it is normal. The model is based on associations that link ideas of circumstances, events, actions, and consequences, with some regularity appear together either simultaneously or one after the other within a relatively short time. According to the formation and strengthening of these relations a set of related ideas shapes the structure of events in your life and determines your interpretation of the present and your expectations for the future.

"Today I am in a great mood, and my System 2 is weaker than usual. I need to be very careful."

"Familiar breeds sympathy. This is the effect of a simple presentation".

"It's so often repeated that we tend to believe, but let's think about it".

Another significant discovery is the strong influence of mood on work of intuition. To measure accuracy, the experimenter calculated the "index of intuition". They found that if the experiment is to lead the participants in a good mood thinking positively, the accuracy increases more than twice. Saddened by the participants, by contrast, was utterly unable to cope with the task on intuition; their guesses were no better than random.

Zajonc argued that the emergence of sympathy when you repeat - the most important biological feature, which also applies to animals. To survive in a frequently dangerous world, an organism must respond to new stimuli carefully and with fear. For the animal, which belongs to the new without suspicion, the prospects for survival look bleak. On the other hand, the extinction of the initial fear of safe phenomenon - a sign of adaptability. Zajonc argued that the effect of a simple presentation arises from the fact that repeated clashes with the new stimulus is not the end of anything is bad. Such a stimulus will eventually become a safety signal, and safety is good. Obviously, this is not only true for humans.

Zajonc presented a concise but succinct description of your research program: "effects of interacting beneficial organisms in relations with its animate and inanimate immediate environment. They allow to distinguish between dangerous and safe items and habitat and also form the simplest basis for social relations. Thus, they form the basis of connectivity and social organization, the main sources of psychological and social stability."

Half of the subjects received the tasks small font and pale printed. The font is called cognitive stress. The test results clearly showed that 90% of students who received fine printed test, made at least one error. In the group of subjects who received a job with a barely legible font, the wrong number has fallen to 35 %. You read that right: with a bad font, the results were better. Cognitive strain, whatever its source, mobilizes System 2, which is more likely to reject the intuitive answer System 1.

On the one hand, during time-consuming operations of System 2, we experience cognitive strain. On the other hand, regardless of the source, this feeling is usually mobilizes System 2, and problems start to come up are not intuitive and carelessly, and with great attention and analytically.

If you need to seem smart and trustworthy, do not use complicated words in cases where quite simple. Danny Oppenheimer, a colleague of mine from Princeton, dispelled the perception among students of the myth that an extensive vocabulary like teachers. In the article "effects of the use of scientific jargon without the need: problems with unreasonable use long words," he showed that the endowment of familiar ideas in pretentious words is a sign of low intelligence and low credibility of the information.

People often heard the words "the body temperature of a chicken", it is easier to take for the truth the statement "the body temperature of a chicken is equal to 62°" (or any other number). The only familiar phrase in the statement is sufficient for all approval seemed familiar, and therefore true.

All that facilitates the work of the associative mechanism, distorts the rating. Frequent repetition is a reliable way to make people believe what is not true, because to distinguish between truth and a sense of something familiar is not easy. Authoritarian regimes and marketers have long know about it,

Seen previously, the word easier to read, and it is this lightness creates a sense of the familiar.

Various causes of ease or strain acting on both sides. In a state of cognitive ease, you probably are in a good mood, you like what you see, you believe what you hear, trust their hunches and assess the situation as comfortable and familiar. In addition, you are likely to talk carelessly and superficially. Feeling the tension, you're likely to be vigilant and prone to suspicion, will invest more effort in their occupation, will feel not so comfortable and make fewer mistakes, but you will be less usual to use intuition and creativity.