Nobel Prize laureate Daniel Kahneman dies at 90

Doctor Daniel Kahneman, who won a Nobel Prize in economics for his research on neurological biases and decision-making, died Wednesday at 90.

Princeton University, where he taught since 1993, said the Israeli-American psychologist died peacefully on Wednesday. No cause of death was given.

Previously, economics considered that people were “rational actors” who could clearly evaluate choices like which car to buy or which job to take. Kahneman and his longstanding associate Amos Tversky changed this assumption. In his best-selling 2011 book “Thinking, Fast and Slow,” Kahneman explained how deep-seated idiosyncrasies and mental shortcuts can skew our thoughts in irrational but predictable ways, influencing our decision-making.

Kahneman and Tversky began investigating decision making in 1974 and rapidly discovered that people react more strongly to losses than benefits. Many people prefer status quo decisions due to “loss aversion,” a now-common concept. Using other findings, the pair established “prospect theory” of risky choosing.

Kahneman won the 2002 Nobel Prize in economics for these and other contributions to behavioral economics.