This is the essence of intuitive heuristics: when faced with a difficult question, we often answer an easier one instead, usually without noticing the substitution.
Daniel KahnemanThe confidence that individuals have in their beliefs depends mostly on the quality of the story they can tell about what they see, even if they see little.
Daniel KahnemanThere is general agreement among researchers that nearly all stock pickers, whether they know it or not-and few of them do-are playing a game of chance.
Daniel KahnemanTo know whether you can trust a particular intuitive judgment, there are two questions you should ask: Is the environment in which the judgment is made sufficiently regular to enable predictions from the available evidence? The answer is yes for diagnosticians, no for stock pickers. Do the professionals have an adequate opportunity to learn the cues and the regularities? The answer here depends on the professionals' experience and on the quality and speed with which they discover their mistakes.
Daniel Kahneman