More on Kahneman ... and on Reflection

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According to David Kahneman, there are two ‘self’s’, the experiencing self and the remembering self.

Our ‘Experiencing Self’ apprehends the moment-to-moment experiences. It is the remembering self that creates the story of our lives. Our remembering self is the storyteller. All of our experiences are forgotten. According to Kahneman it is our remembering Self that forms the memory ‘based on’ the experience, i.e. we don’t remember the experience, we remember a highly selective representation of the experience.

Interesting, Kahneman identifies the paramount importance of endings in our experiences. According to Kahneman our memories are strongly influenced by the ending of specific experiences. Bear in mind as best as we can tell, our experiences (in the moment) last as a mental formation for around 3 seconds.

Research has shown that the duration of our experiences matters very little. Whether this is of a painful surgical procedure, or a holiday. So if we go on holiday for 1 week or two weeks, it does not affect the overall memory of the experience.  The duration of our experience-events barely impacts on the memory. How the experience ends plays a far greater influence on the memory that is formed.

So we can think of our experiences ads being ‘voiceless (Kahneman). It is the Remembering Self that dictates what we make of our experiences.

Finally, Kahneman slips between the definition of memory as the ‘Remembering Self’ and the ‘Reflective Self’. The implications of this are that we can construct, intentionally, a memory of our experiences that can add positively to our professional practice. I urge you to look at Kahneman’s TED lecture.

 

You might also like to view some concluding thoughts from a discussion with students on the topic of reflection.