You know, “It is much easier to construct a coherent story” with limited information. It’s a truth we see play out in business and life all the time. Kahneman nailed a fundamental flaw in our thinking.
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Meaning
The core message is that our brains crave a neat, simple narrative, and that’s a lot easier to create when you’re ignoring most of the complex, messy details.
Explanation
It’s like this. Our minds are basically storytelling machines, right? They’re desperate to make sense of the world. And when you only have a few data points, you can easily connect them into a straight, clean line. No contradictions, no nagging “what ifs.” It feels solid. But the moment you start digging, the moment you get more data, that simple story starts to fall apart. You uncover exceptions, nuances, and conflicting evidence. Suddenly, creating a single, clean narrative becomes a real headache because you’re now trying to force a complex reality into a simple box. And our brains hate that cognitive strain.
Quote Summary
| Context | Attributes |
|---|---|
| Original Language | English (3668) |
| Category | Education (260) |
| Topics | illusion (22), knowledge (25), story (19) |
| Literary Style | witty (99) |
| Emotion / Mood | reflective (382) |
| Overall Quote Score | 82 (297) |
Origin & Factcheck
This insight comes straight from Daniel Kahneman’s 2011 masterpiece, Thinking, Fast and Slow. It’s a core part of his work on cognitive biases, developed over decades of research, primarily in the US and Israel. You sometimes see the sentiment echoed elsewhere, but this specific phrasing is uniquely Kahneman’s.
Attribution Summary
| Context | Attributes |
|---|---|
| Author | Daniel Kahneman (54) |
| Source Type | Book (4032) |
| Source/Book Name | Thinking, Fast and Slow (54) |
| Origin Timeperiod | 21st Century (1892) |
| Original Language | English (3668) |
| Authenticity | Verified (4032) |
Author Bio
Dr Daniel Kahneman transformed how we think about thinking. Trained in Israel and at UC Berkeley, he built a career spanning Hebrew University, UBC, UC Berkeley, and Princeton. His partnership with Amos Tversky produced prospect theory and the heuristics-and-biases program, culminating in the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. He engaged broad audiences through bestselling books and practical frameworks for better decisions. He continued writing and advising late into life, leaving ideas that shape economics, policy, medicine, and management. If you want to dive deeper, start with the Dr Daniel Kahneman book list and explore his enduring insights.
| Official Website
Where is this quotation located?
| Quotation | It is much easier to construct a coherent story when you know little than when you know a lot |
| Book Details | Publication Year: 2011; ISBN: 9780374275631; Latest Edition: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013; Number of pages: 499. |
| Where is it? | Part III: Overconfidence, Chapter 20: The Illusion of Understanding, Approximate page 198 (2013 edition) |