Daniel Kahneman, the author and psychologist who won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2002 for his work on decision-making, has died at 90, the New York Times reports.
Kahneman was born to a Jewish family in Tel Aviv in 1934 and was raised in Paris during the Nazi occupation. His father was detained by the Nazis for six weeks but released; his family managed to evade the Nazis for the remainder of the war, moving to British-controlled Palestine in 1948.
He was educated at Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the University of California, Berkeley, and taught psychology at Hebrew University, the University of British Columbia, UC Berkeley, and Princeton University.
Kahneman published his first book, Attention and Effort, in 1973. In 2011, he published Thinking, Fast and Slow; the book became a bestseller and earned positive reviews from critics, including one from Kirkus, who wrote, “Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.”
His most recent book, Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment, co-written with Olivier Sibony and Cass R. Sunstein, was published in 2021.
Kahneman’s admirers paid tribute to him on social media. On X, formerly Twitter, political scientist Ian Bremmer wrote, “an inspiration to social scientists around the world. we shall miss you daniel kahneman.”
And cognitive scientist and author Steven Pinker posted, “Sad to learn of the death of Daniel Kahneman, one of the greatest psychologists in history.”
Sad to learn of the death of Daniel Kahneman, one of the greatest psychologists in history. https://t.co/g6WQrLxNN4
— Steven Pinker (@sapinker) March 27, 2024
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.