# Daniel Kahneman (דניאל כהנמן)
**Daniel Kahneman** (דניאל כהנמן; 5 March 1934 – 27 March 2024) was an Israeli-American psychologist who won the 2002 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for integrating insights from psychological research into economic science, especially concerning human judgment and decision-making under uncertainty[1](https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/apr/04/daniel-kahneman-obituary) • [2](https://www.princeton.edu/news/2024/03/28/daniel-kahneman-pioneering-behavioral-psychologist-nobel-laureate-and-giant-field). With his longtime collaborator [Amos Tversky](https://www.edgepedia.org/amos-tversky), he showed that human judgment departs from rational-choice models in systematic, predictable ways, work that laid the foundation of behavioral economics[3](https://apnews.com/article/cda8ff04b8751446f30e3402f610b7ff).
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Born / died | 5 March 1934, Tel Aviv; 27 March 2024, twenty-two days after his 90th birthday[1](https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/apr/04/daniel-kahneman-obituary) • [4](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11228468/) |
| Education | BA in psychology and mathematics, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1954; Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley, 1961[5](https://bog.haifa.ac.il/images/bog2016/honory/cahanman_eng.pdf) • [6](https://www.nobelprize.org/laureate/759) |
| Signature papers | "Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases" (Science, 1974); "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision under Risk" (Econometrica, 1979), both with Amos Tversky[7](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17835457/) • [8](https://econpapers.repec.org/article/ecmemetrp/v_3a47_3ay_3a1979_3ai_3a2_3ap_3a263-91.htm) |
| Nobel Prize | 2002 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences, shared with Vernon L. Smith, for integrating psychological insights into economic science[2](https://www.princeton.edu/news/2024/03/28/daniel-kahneman-pioneering-behavioral-psychologist-nobel-laureate-and-giant-field) |
| Popular books | *Thinking, Fast and Slow* (2011); *Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment* (2021, with Olivier Sibony and Cass R. Sunstein)[2](https://www.princeton.edu/news/2024/03/28/daniel-kahneman-pioneering-behavioral-psychologist-nobel-laureate-and-giant-field) |
| Later honors | Presidential Medal of Freedom (2013); Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award of the American Psychological Association and Grawemeyer Prize, both jointly with Tversky[2](https://www.princeton.edu/news/2024/03/28/daniel-kahneman-pioneering-behavioral-psychologist-nobel-laureate-and-giant-field) • [9](https://kahneman.scholar.princeton.edu/) |
## Early life and education
Kahneman was born in [Tel Aviv](https://www.edgepedia.org/tel-aviv) while his parents, who had emigrated from [Lithuania](https://www.edgepedia.org/lithuania) to France, were visiting relatives; he spent his childhood in wartime Paris[5](https://bog.haifa.ac.il/images/bog2016/honory/cahanman_eng.pdf) • [2](https://www.princeton.edu/news/2024/03/28/daniel-kahneman-pioneering-behavioral-psychologist-nobel-laureate-and-giant-field). An encounter with an SS soldier during the occupation, who embraced him and sent him off with money, was formative enough that he included it in his Nobel biography; he wrote that he went home realizing that people were endlessly complicated and interesting[4](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11228468/). After the war the family immigrated to British-controlled Palestine in early 1948, shortly before the founding of Israel[2](https://www.princeton.edu/news/2024/03/28/daniel-kahneman-pioneering-behavioral-psychologist-nobel-laureate-and-giant-field).
He completed a bachelor's degree in psychology and mathematics at the [Hebrew University of Jerusalem](https://www.edgepedia.org/hebrew-university-of-jerusalem) in 1954, then served in the [Israel Defense Forces](https://www.edgepedia.org/israel-defense-forces) as a psychologist[5](https://bog.haifa.ac.il/images/bog2016/honory/cahanman_eng.pdf). In the IDF he designed a structured interview for selecting combat-unit recruits that remained in use decades later, and he encountered his first cognitive illusion: assessors confidently rated leadership potential from a team task even though their judgments bore little relation to later performance at officer training school. He named this pattern the illusion of validity[4](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11228468/) • [3](https://apnews.com/article/cda8ff04b8751446f30e3402f610b7ff). He earned his Ph.D. at the [University of California](https://www.edgepedia.org/university-of-california), Berkeley, in 1961[6](https://www.nobelprize.org/laureate/759).
## The collaboration with Amos Tversky
Kahneman teamed up with Amos Tversky in 1968, and their partnership lasted nearly 30 years[4](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11228468/) • [2](https://www.princeton.edu/news/2024/03/28/daniel-kahneman-pioneering-behavioral-psychologist-nobel-laureate-and-giant-field). They worked so closely that they flipped a coin to decide lead authorship on their first paper and alternated the honor thereafter[3](https://apnews.com/article/cda8ff04b8751446f30e3402f610b7ff). Kahneman later wrote that they shared "a joint mind that was better than our separate minds"[3](https://apnews.com/article/cda8ff04b8751446f30e3402f610b7ff).
Their 1974 paper in *Science*, "Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases," showed that people rely on shortcuts, or heuristics, that produce systematic biases in judgment under uncertainty[7](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17835457/) • [10](https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2018/06/advanced-economicsciences2002.pdf). One fundamental bias they identified is the *law of small numbers*: people attribute the same probability distribution to results from small and large samples, violating the law of large numbers[10](https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2018/06/advanced-economicsciences2002.pdf).
## Prospect theory
In 1979 Kahneman and Tversky published "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision under Risk" in *Econometrica*, proposing an alternative to expected utility theory[8](https://econpapers.repec.org/article/ecmemetrp/v_3a47_3ay_3a1979_3ai_3a2_3ap_3a263-91.htm). The theory holds that preferences are reference-dependent: people evaluate outcomes as gains and losses relative to a reference point rather than as final wealth states[11](https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2018/06/kahnemann-lecture.pdf). Its central empirical insight is loss aversion, the finding that people react far more intensely to losses than to equivalent gains[3](https://apnews.com/article/cda8ff04b8751446f30e3402f610b7ff). The value function is concave for gains, favoring risk aversion; convex for losses, favoring risk seeking; and sharply kinked at the reference point, steeper for losses than for gains by a factor of about 2 to 2.5[11](https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2018/06/kahnemann-lecture.pdf).
In 1992 Tversky and Kahneman published a modified version, cumulative prospect theory, which resolves problems of the original formulation, including its violations of stochastic dominance, by using a rank-dependent method for transforming probabilities[12](https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w18621/w18621.pdf) • [13](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/bounded-rationality/index.html). Among papers in economics published from 1970 to 2002 and cited up to 2006, the 1979 prospect theory paper ranked second[14](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10640-025-01031-8).
## Nobel Prize and academic career
Kahneman taught psychology at the Hebrew University, rising to professor in 1970, and later held professorships at the [University of British Columbia](https://www.edgepedia.org/university-of-british-columbia) (1978 to 1986) and the University of California, Berkeley (1986 to 1994)[15](https://www.mediatheque.lindau-nobel.org/laureates/kahneman/cv) • [9](https://kahneman.scholar.princeton.edu/). He joined Princeton University in 1993 as the Eugene Higgins Professor of Psychology and professor of psychology and public affairs, transferring to emeritus status in 2007[2](https://www.princeton.edu/news/2024/03/28/daniel-kahneman-pioneering-behavioral-psychologist-nobel-laureate-and-giant-field).
He received the 2002 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, formally the Sveriges Riksbank Prize, shared with the American economist [Vernon L. Smith](https://www.edgepedia.org/vernon-l-smith), "for having integrated insights from psychological research into economic science, especially concerning human judgment and decision-making under uncertainty"[2](https://www.princeton.edu/news/2024/03/28/daniel-kahneman-pioneering-behavioral-psychologist-nobel-laureate-and-giant-field). He never formally studied the discipline, but he was not the first recipient of the economics prize without academic training as an economist, as [Jan Tinbergen](https://www.edgepedia.org/jan-tinbergen), who shared the inaugural prize in 1969, had studied mathematical physics and earned his doctorate in that field in 1929[16](https://www.lemonde.fr/disparitions/article/2024/04/17/daniel-kahneman-le-psychologue-qui-a-revolutionne-l-economie_6228349_3382.html) • [24](https://tinbergen.nl/professor-jan-tinbergen). Tversky died in 1996, and the Nobel is not awarded posthumously; economists have said he would certainly have shared the prize[3](https://apnews.com/article/cda8ff04b8751446f30e3402f610b7ff). Kahneman himself credited the integration of his work into economics largely to Richard Thaler and the young economists who formed around him, starting with [Colin Camerer](https://www.edgepedia.org/colin-camerer) and George Loewenstein[17](https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2002/kahneman/biographical/?adid=hilp-post&campaignid=hilp-lv-oct21&siteid=linkedin).
## Thinking, Fast and Slow and the replication debate
Kahneman's 2011 book *Thinking, Fast and Slow* presented his research for general readers, framing thought in two modes: a fast, intuitive and emotional system, and a slower, deliberate and logical one[3](https://apnews.com/article/cda8ff04b8751446f30e3402f610b7ff) • [18](https://time.com/6961454/daniel-kahneman-death-interview-thinking/).
The book's chapter on priming became the focus of the replication crisis in psychology. In 2012, after a prominent priming study failed to replicate, Kahneman sent an open letter to priming researchers warning of a "train wreck" and urging them to replicate one another's work[19](https://replicationindex.com/2017/02/02/reconstruction-of-a-train-wreck-how-priming-research-went-of-the-rails/) • [20](https://www.apa.org/monitor/2013/02/results). Chapter-based analyses later assigned the priming chapter a failing grade for predicted replicability[21](https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/04/20/kahneman-tversky-invisible-mind-manipulators/). Kahneman acknowledged the problem, writing that he had "placed too much faith in underpowered studies" regarding the fourth chapter of the book[19](https://replicationindex.com/2017/02/02/reconstruction-of-a-train-wreck-how-priming-research-went-of-the-rails/).
## Noise and later work
Late in his career Kahneman turned to a second type of error. In *Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment* (2021), written with Olivier Sibony and Cass R. Sunstein, he distinguished noise from bias: bias is the average error in a set of judgments, all tending in the same direction, while noise is the variability of error, with mistakes scattering in many different directions[22](https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/sounding-the-alarm-on-system-noise). He had studied biases for more than 50 years and encountered noise as a distinct problem only about seven years before that book[22](https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/sounding-the-alarm-on-system-noise).
Kahneman died on 27 March 2024, twenty-two days after his 90th birthday; he had earlier told friends that 90 was a good age to leave this life[23](https://behavioralpolicy.princeton.edu/news/DanielKahneman) • [4](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11228468/). His partner, Barbara Tversky, the widow of Amos Tversky, confirmed the death; the family did not disclose the location or cause[3](https://apnews.com/article/cda8ff04b8751446f30e3402f610b7ff). Princeton's Kahneman-Treisman Center for Behavioral Science and Public Policy, created with a $10 million gift in 2015, is named for him and his wife, the psychologist [Anne Treisman](https://www.edgepedia.org/anne-treisman), who died in 2018[2](https://www.princeton.edu/news/2024/03/28/daniel-kahneman-pioneering-behavioral-psychologist-nobel-laureate-and-giant-field).
## References
1. [Daniel Kahneman obituary, The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/apr/04/daniel-kahneman-obituary)
2. [Daniel Kahneman, pioneering behavioral psychologist, Nobel laureate, dies at 90, Princeton University](https://www.princeton.edu/news/2024/03/28/daniel-kahneman-pioneering-behavioral-psychologist-nobel-laureate-and-giant-field)
3. [Nobelist Daniel Kahneman, a pioneer of behavioral economics, is dead at 90, AP News](https://apnews.com/article/cda8ff04b8751446f30e3402f610b7ff)
4. [Maya Bar-Hillel (2024). Daniel Kahneman: The psychologist who won a Nobel Prize in Economics for replacing Homo economicus with flesh-and-blood humans. PNAS/PMC.](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11228468/)
5. [Professor Daniel Kahneman, University of Haifa](https://bog.haifa.ac.il/images/bog2016/honory/cahanman_eng.pdf)
6. [Daniel Kahneman – Facts, Nobel Foundation](https://www.nobelprize.org/laureate/759)
7. [Tversky, A., Kahneman, D. (1974). Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases. Science 185(4157):1124-1131.](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17835457/)
8. [Kahneman, D., Tversky, A. (1979). Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision under Risk. Econometrica 47(2):263-91.](https://econpapers.repec.org/article/ecmemetrp/v_3a47_3ay_3a1979_3ai_3a2_3ap_3a263-91.htm)
9. [Daniel Kahneman, Princeton memorial site](https://kahneman.scholar.princeton.edu/)
10. [Advanced information on the Prize in Economic Sciences 2002, Nobel Foundation](https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2018/06/advanced-economicsciences2002.pdf)
11. [Daniel Kahneman – Nobel Lecture, Nobel Foundation](https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2018/06/kahnemann-lecture.pdf)
12. [Thirty Years of Prospect Theory in Economics: A Review and Assessment, NBER Working Paper 18621](https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w18621/w18621.pdf)
13. [Bounded Rationality, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/bounded-rationality/index.html)
14. [What Daniel Kahneman Thought about Economics: A Reconstruction and Critique, Environmental and Resource Economics](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10640-025-01031-8)
15. [CV – Daniel Kahneman, Lindau Mediatheque](https://www.mediatheque.lindau-nobel.org/laureates/kahneman/cv)
16. [Daniel Kahneman, le psychologue qui a révolutionné l'économie, Le Monde](https://www.lemonde.fr/disparitions/article/2024/04/17/daniel-kahneman-le-psychologue-qui-a-revolutionne-l-economie_6228349_3382.html)
17. [Daniel Kahneman – Biographical, Nobel Foundation](https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2002/kahneman/biographical/?adid=hilp-post&campaignid=hilp-lv-oct21&siteid=linkedin)
18. [What Nobel Winner Daniel Kahneman Said About Decisions, Marriage, and Success, TIME](https://time.com/6961454/daniel-kahneman-death-interview-thinking/)
19. [Reconstruction of a Train Wreck: How Priming Research Went off the Rails, Replicability-Index](https://replicationindex.com/2017/02/02/reconstruction-of-a-train-wreck-how-priming-research-went-of-the-rails/)
20. [Interesting results: Can they be replicated?, APA Monitor](https://www.apa.org/monitor/2013/02/results)
21. [Invisible Manipulators of Your Mind, The New York Review of Books](https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/04/20/kahneman-tversky-invisible-mind-manipulators/)
22. [Sounding the alarm on system noise, McKinsey Quarterly interview with Kahneman and Sibony](https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/sounding-the-alarm-on-system-noise)
23. [Daniel Kahneman, 1934 – 2024, Kahneman-Treisman Center for Behavioral Science & Public Policy](https://behavioralpolicy.princeton.edu/news/DanielKahneman)
24. [Nobel Prize Laureate Jan Tinbergen](https://tinbergen.nl/professor-jan-tinbergen)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Physical world and mathematics › Physical and mathematical scientists › Mathematicians and statisticians › Game theorists and decision scientists*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Sep 18, 2026; Sep 21, 2026; Oct 15, 2026 · Edited: Sep 18, 2026; Sep 21, 2026; Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 15, 2026*
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