Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman’s despair at the Instagram generation

Behavioural psychology seems to be the new religion of the well-heeled. Westminster’s Methodist Central Hall was packed last night at a 5x15 and How To: Academy talk by Nobel Prize-winning psychologist Professor Daniel Kahneman, who was discussing his best-selling book, Thinking, Fast and Slow. It throws light on everything from the delusional, random luck of Wall Street bankers to the way the Instagram generation now “experiences the present as an anticipated memory”.

But despite the devotees around him, Kahneman laughed off the idea that he is some kind of prophet. “There are people who think reading my book has changed their lives,” he modestly confessed. “It’s not true. It’s a mistake in the story that they tell themselves.”