Another promising stream of researc

Another promising stream of research that examines how System 2 thinking can
be leveraged to reduce System 1 errors has shown that analogical reasoning can be used
to reduce bounds on people’s awareness (see Bazerman and Chugh 2005 for more on
bounded awareness). Building on the work of Thompson, Gentner, and Loewenstein
(2000), both Idson, Chugh, Bereby-Meyer, Moran, Grosskopf, and Bazerman (2004) and
Moran, Ritov, and Bazerman (2008) found that individuals who were encouraged to see
and understand the common principle underlying a set of seemingly unrelated tasks
subsequently demonstrated an improved ability to discover solutions in a different task
that relied on the same underlying principle. This work is consistent with Thompson et
al.’s (2000) observation that surface details of learning opportunities often distract us
from seeing important underlying, generalizable principles. Analogical reasoning
appears to offer hope for overcoming this barrier to decision improvement.

Work on joint-versus-separate decision making also suggests that people can
move from suboptimal System 1 thinking toward improved System 2 thinking when they
consider and choose between multiple options simultaneously rather than accepting or
rejecting options separately. For example, Bazerman, White and Loewenstein (1995)
find evidence that people display more bounded self-interest (Jolls, Sunstein, and Thaler,
1998) – focusing on their outcomes relative to those of others rather than optimizing their
own outcomes – when assessing one option at a time than when considering multiple
options side by side. Bazerman, Loewenstein and White (1992) have also demonstrated
that people exhibit less willpower when they weigh choices separately rather than jointly.