There was a great article in Sunday's New York Times, to the effect that the basic architecture of the brain makes us feel first and think second and explains our notorious risk-perception gap. Long live the amygdla!
My highlights from the article:
- While our choices about risk invariably feel right when we make them, many of these decisions end up putting us in greater peril, because we often cannot correctly evaluate risk.
- Humans subconsciously weigh the risks and benefits of any choice or course of action — and if taking a particular action seems to afford little or no benefit, the risk automatically feels bigger. Conversely, if the benefit is very clear, the risk is seen as less. (See, e.g., difference between parents' enthusiasm for polio vaccine and fear of current childhood vaccinations)
- The part of the brain where the instinctive “fight or flight” signal is first triggered — the amygdala — is situated such that it receives incoming stimuli before the parts of the brain that think things over.
- A societal risk, well off in the future, tends not to trigger alarm — in part, because the hazard isn't singling any one of us out, individually. Hence the lack of response about global environmental threats.
- Risk perception is not so much a process of pure reason, but rather a subjective combination of the facts and how those facts feel to us.
While the article looks at personal decisions such as whether or not to vaccinate one's child, it applies in the rest of the world as well. I'm in the business of providing insights for decision-makers, and I know in my heart that a lot of what goes into a decision is far less tangible than analysis...
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