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Daniel Kahneman

Daniel Kahneman was an Israeli-American psychologist known for his work on judgment, decision-making and behavioral economics, which earned him the 2002 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.

1934 to 2024Prospect theoryResearch on heuristics and biasesThe 2002 Nobel Prize in EconomicsThinking, Fast and Slow

Born: 5 March 1934, Tel Aviv
Died: 27 March 2024, Nunningen
Occupation: psychologist, economist, university teacher, essayist
Education: Hebrew University of Jerusalem, University of California, Berkeley, Hebrew University Secondary School

Daniel Kahneman was born in 1934 in Tel Aviv

Kahneman was born in Tel Aviv in 1934, while his mother was visiting family. His parents were Lithuanian Jews who had moved to France, and he grew up in Paris. During the German occupation the family hid, and his father died of diabetes in 1944.

After moving to the Land of Israel, he studied psychology and mathematics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and graduated in 1954. In 1958 he began a PhD in psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, and finished it in 1961.

He served in the IDF, first in infantry and then in its psychology unit. There he developed an interview for combat recruits.

He joined the Hebrew University faculty in 1961 and began working with Amos Tversky in 1969. Together they studied heuristics and biases and published prospect theory in 1979. He later moved to the University of British Columbia in 1978, to Berkeley in 1986 and to Princeton University in 1993.

In 2011 he published Thinking, Fast and Slow, and in 2021 he co-wrote Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment. He was married to psychologist Anne Treisman until her death in 2018. He died on March 27, 2024.