Daniel Kahneman

Nobel prize winner, pioneering economic psychologist Daniel Kahneman passed away on March 27, 2024 at the age of 90. Daniel Kahneman was born in 1934 during his mother’s visit in Tel Aviv as a son of a Lithuanian Jewish family residing in Paris. He survived the holocaust in France and later immigrated to Israel. Daniel Kahneman received a bachelor’s degree in psychology and mathematics from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem in 1954 and made his first significant scientific contribution in the Israel Defense Forces, working on selection and placement issues. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of California-Berkeley in 1961. In 1967, he returned to Jerusalem where he met Amos Tversky, and cooperated with him in what became one of the most influential “intellectual duos” in the history of psychology.

Mainly between 1971 and 1981, Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman investigated judgment under uncertainty within the “Heuristics and Biases” program. They moved to North America with Daniel Kahneman ending up at Princeton University, where he worked from 1993 until his retirement. In 1974, they started to investigate Decision Making in what later became known as “Prospect Theory”. In 1979, they published the theory in “Econometrica”’ in their most famous article which became the basis for the Nobel awarded to Daniel Kahneman in 2002 for his joint work with Amos Tversky (1937-1996).  

His work awarded by many institutions and the Nobel laureate in (behavioral) economics produced groundbreaking behavioral science research that changed our understanding of how people think and make decisions. The limits of rationality and his heuristic and bias program have been influential to many disciplines including sport psychology. Most notably the prospect theory has been applied to risky decisions in sports. Daniel Kahneman once said: “sports research is a great idea, because people here take many decisions that are of great importance to them under standard conditions. In fact, this is one of the best fields to do that” (Kahneman, 2008, personal communication with Michael Bar-Eli). Daniel Kahneman’s influence to science and society is at its best. His attitude to science and his dedication can make him a role-model to all of us. For example, Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky persistently “polished” their Econometrica paper for four years until it was perfect in their eyes. FEPSAC and sport psychologists worldwide are encouraged by his legacy to understand how humans think and decide. Our deepest condolence goes to his family – children, stepchildren, grandchildren, and partner.

 

Find more details on Daniel Kahneman at Princeton:

https://www.princeton.edu/news/2024/03/28/daniel-kahneman-pioneering-behavioral-psychologist-nobel-laureate-and-giant-field

 

Markus Raab and Michael Bar-Eli