Policy makers, like most people, normally feel that they already know all the psychology and all the sociology they are likely to need for their decisions. I don't think they are right, but that's the way it is.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the overconfidence of policy makers in their understanding of psychology and sociology.
In this quote, Daniel Kahneman suggests that policy makers, similar to many individuals, often believe they possess sufficient knowledge of psychological and sociological concepts to inform their decisions. He challenges this assumption, implying that such self-assurance may lead to flawed or uninformed decision-making, emphasizing the complexity of human behavior and social dynamics that often require deeper understanding.
In practice
During a panel discussion on governance, a speaker could use this quote to illustrate the risks of overconfidence in decision-making.
We think, each of us, that we're much more rational than we are. And we think that we make our decisions because we have good reasons to make them. Even when it's the other way around. We believe in the reasons, because we've already made the decision.
The average investor's return is significantly lower than market indices due primarily to market timing.
Banks are run by executives, and executives protect themselves, and that does not always mean that banks are going to behave rationally.
Laziness is built deep into our nature.
Through some combination of culture and biology, our minds are intuitively receptive to religion.
You are more likely to learn something by finding surprises in your own behavior than by hearing surprising facts about people in general.
Civilized Man says: I am Self, I am Master, all the rest is other--outside, below, underneath, subservient. I own, I use, I explore, I exploit, I control. What I do is what matters. What I want is what matter is for. I am that I am, and the rest is women & wilderness, to be used as I see fit.
Any psychology of sign systems will be part of social psychology - that is to say, will be exclusively social; it will involve the same psychology as is applicable in the case of languages.
The only theism worthy of our respect believes in God not because of the way the world is made but in spite of that. The only theism that is no less profound than the Buddha's atheism is that represented in the Bible by Job and Jeremiah.
To think of these stars that you see overhead at night, these vast worlds which we can never reach. I would annex the planets if I could; I often think of that. It makes me sad to see them so clear and yet so far.
In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.
No one ever lacks a good reason for suicide.
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