{"id":29250,"date":"2022-10-25T18:16:17","date_gmt":"2022-10-26T01:16:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=29250"},"modified":"2022-10-25T18:16:17","modified_gmt":"2022-10-26T01:16:17","slug":"selling-our-home-an-exercise-in-thinking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/selling-our-home-an-exercise-in-thinking\/","title":{"rendered":"Selling our Home: An Exercise in Thinking"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Thinking, Fast and Slow, <\/em>author and Nobel prize winner Daniel Kahneman brings together decades of his research, along with discoveries of other psychologists and economists, to present his findings on how human beings think. In particular, he highlights his idea that the human brain utilizes two systems in our thinking processes that affect our judgements and decisions. System 1 is fast, automatic, can’t be switched off, and, though it has no sense of intentional control, it is the source of many of the choices and judgments we make.[1]<\/a> System 2 is slow, deliberate, and requires unbroken, focused attention to complete the operations it undertakes.[2]<\/a> He adds that we tend to \u201coverestimate how much we understand about the world and\u2026 underestimate the role of chance in events,\u201d making us overconfident in our conclusions, including conclusions about our own well-being.[3]<\/a> Kahneman\u2019s goal is to equip people to notice and correct faulty decision-making processes that can lead to damaging choices, and instead engage our slow-thinking abilities, which will lead to sounder decisions.[4]<\/a><\/p>\n

Kahneman recognizes that constantly questioning our thinking practices is impractical and System 2 is too slow to make \u201croutine\u201d decisions. A compromise is needed, he says, in which we \u201clearn to recognize situations in which mistakes are likely and try harder to avoid significant mistakes when the stakes are high.\u201d[5]<\/a> It is interesting to note that other psychological researchers would take this suggestion further, pointing out that the ability to be completely rational is not reasonable in our world where time and energy are limited. They suggest that \u201cspeed and frugality are just what we need to make the best decisions we can in the real world\u201d and that the use of heuristics is generally the best approach to many real-world problems and therefore, not irrational.[6]<\/a><\/p>\n

The complexity of the human brain and body amazes me and I am continually asking myself, \u201cHow did God intend the incredible human brain and body to live well within all of God\u2019s creation? What is a practical application for the discoveries made by experts of our time?\u00a0 How does our knowledge of God\u2019s presence in our lives affect how we weave these discoveries into our everyday routines?<\/p>\n

I would have benefited from Kahneman\u2019s wisdom ten months ago, when my husband and I sold our house, a process that involved quick gut-feeling decisions, as well as slow, deliberate calculations. Not being experts in real estate, we met with a professional realtor, Dee. Dee had thirty years of experience in the field. We learned that Dee operated on intuition, as well as on the \u201ctruths\u201d of the housing market. She came highly recommend by a retired realtor friend and she spoke confidently of her skills and her recent success selling houses for prices which greatly pleased her clients. This sounded good to us and we hired Dee.<\/p>\n

Regarding when to trust a self-confident professional, Kahneman suggest we look for two conditions needed to acquire and develop a skill:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. An environment that is sufficiently regular to be predictable<\/li>\n
  2. An opportunity to learn these regularities through prolonged practice[7]<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Dee\u2019s thirty years in the field seemed ample time to hone one\u2019s skills and learn from mistakes. However, the real estate market seems anything but \u201csufficiently regular to be predictable.\u201d Our house selling journey unfolded with unexpected challenges. Dee repeatedly commented, \u201cIn my thirty years of selling houses, I have never seen this!\u201d As we navigated the selling process, both Dee and my husband and I made decisions with positive and negative results. One might say that in the end, the final sale to a great buyer was largely due to, as Kahneman says about most stories of success, luck.[8]<\/a><\/p>\n

    One might say that, except for a factor that Kahneman did not mention, and that is prayer. We prayed throughout our house selling process and surprisingly, transferred the home to the new owners, as we were on our way out and they were on their way in, with a prayer in the driveway, as suggested by their realtor. Our house selling journey had a surprising conclusion, that worked well for everyone in the end.<\/p>\n

    How does prayer factor into the ways in which we think, fast and slow? We may not be able to rely on our own intuitions solely and confidently, and it does seem good advice to slow our thoughts and contemplate decisions carefully. But, as we operate in our everyday lives, how do we interact with the One who created our minds? I think there is wisdom in Kahneman\u2019s research. I also think we can weave that wisdom into our belief that the living God interacts with us and in that interaction, our thoughts are formed and guided and so have the potential to shape our decisions.<\/p>\n

    Thanks be to God for mercy, grace, and guidance in our imperfect ways and our imperfect world.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    [1]<\/a> Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow <\/em>(New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011), 20-21.<\/p>\n

    [2]<\/a> Kahneman, 21-22.<\/p>\n

    [3]<\/a> Kahneman, 14.<\/p>\n

    [4]<\/a> Kahneman, 4.<\/p>\n

    [5]<\/a> Kahneman, 28.<\/p>\n

    [6]<\/a> Howard Rachlin,\u00a0\u201cRational Thought and Rational Behavior: A review of Bounded Rationality<\/em>: The Adaptive Toolbox<\/em><\/a><\/span>,\u201d\u00a0Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior<\/em> 79, no.3 (February 26, 2013): 409\u2013412.<\/p>\n

    [7]<\/a> Kahneman, 240.<\/p>\n

    [8]<\/a> Kahneman, 9.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    In Thinking, Fast and Slow, author and Nobel prize winner Daniel Kahneman brings together decades of his research, along with discoveries of other psychologists and economists, to present his findings on how human beings think. In particular, he highlights his idea that the human brain utilizes two systems in our thinking processes that affect our […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":157,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2052],"class_list":["post-29250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-kahneman","cohort-dlgp01"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/157"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29250"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29250\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29251,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29250\/revisions\/29251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}