Experiencing Self vs Remembering Self Daniel Kahneman point of view

Why is different the feeling of the experience vs the memory of the feeling? Which one is more important for our choice decision path?

According to Daniel Kahneman we have two selves. One of them is the experiencing self that is the one that lives in the present, the one that feels. On the other hand, we have the remembering self, which is the one that store the story of your life. Let’s give an easy example to understand how this works (Example provide by D.Kahneman).

Colonoscopy test among the 2 systems.

The example provided is from the time when it was painfully to have a colonoscopy. On the next graph you can see two different colonoscopies.

The first doctor performed a shorter colonoscopy (9 minutes) but it stop in the most painful part. The second continue with the colonoscopy so it is longer but it finishes in a lower level of pain.

So here are some interesting questions to think:

Who is the patient that suffers the most? Which surgeon would you choose in your next colonoscopy?

Here we have to differentiate the two systems, the system 1 (Experiencing self) would say that the Patient B felt more aggregated pain (it was a longer operation with the same peaks of pain).

The interesting thing to understand is that for the system 2 (Remembering self) the story is a little bit different. For system 2, time is not very important, so the extra-time would not affect the measure of the pain in this systems. But the fact that the last moment of the surgery on Patient A is on the highest level of pain will store the event as a worse memory than the surgery perform to Patient B. This is very important to answer the second question, because in order to make new decisions we reach our past experience to decide, so its probably that although Patient B suffers more he had a better remembering of the experience and he is going to choose surgeon 2 in case of a new colonoscopy.

So what do you think is more important in a brand/product experience, the experience itself or the remembering of the experience? 

Since I heard Daniel Kahneman I start to analyze regular daily situations and how we remember them. For example when you go to a restaurant, what would happened if they charge you before you eat. Probably your memories wouldn't be about paying but about having the great dinner. Or maybe if after you pay the restaurant give you candy on your way out? Will these enhance the experience and make your "remembering self" to choose you again? There are a lot of factors among the decision making process but these are strategies that I probably would use to increase my results in any business.

Here is the complete lecture of D.Kahneman

As always, thanks for taking the time for reading.

Any comment will be well received.