Nobel Prize-Winning Psychologist Daniel Kahneman Dies at 90



Daniel Kahneman, the Nobel Prize-winning psychologist known for his groundbreaking work in behavioral economics, has passed away at the age of 90. He died 'peacefully' on Wednesday, March 27, according to a statement from Princeton University, where he had been a faculty member since 1993. The university did not disclose the cause of his death.


Kahneman was renowned for his best-selling book "Thinking, Fast and Slow," which challenged the idea that human behavior is primarily driven by rational decision-making. Instead, he demonstrated that people often rely on instinct and unconscious biases in their decision-making processes.


Eldar Shafir, a former colleague at Princeton University, described Kahneman as a "giant in the field" whose influence extended across the social sciences. "Many areas in the social sciences simply have not been the same since he arrived on the scene. He will be greatly missed," Shafir said.


Born in Tel Aviv in 1934 to French parents, Kahneman's family returned to Paris when he was three months old. However, their lives were upended when the Nazis invaded France, leading to their escape to unoccupied France. They spent the rest of World War II in hiding, and Kahneman's father died in 1944. In 1946, Kahneman and his mother moved to British-ruled Palestine, shortly before the creation of the state of Israel.


In 2002, Kahneman was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics for his work with Amos Tversky, who had passed away six years earlier. Together, they developed models that showed how intuitive reasoning is often flawed in predictable ways. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences noted their groundbreaking contributions, particularly in understanding human judgment and decision-making under uncertainty, in its citation for the award.

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