Posted on 01/04/2007 6:27:41 PM PST by shrinkermd
Why are hawks so influential? The answer may lie deep in the human mind. People have dozens of decision-making biases, and almost all favor conflict rather than concession. A look at why the tough guys win more than they should.
...Social and cognitive psychologists have identified a number of predictable errors (psychologists call them biases) in the ways that humans judge situations and evaluate risks. Biases have been documented both in the laboratory and in the real world, mostly in situations that have no connection to international politics. For example, people are prone to exaggerating their strengths: About 80 percent of us believe that our driving skills are better than average. In situations of potential conflict, the same optimistic bias makes politicians and generals receptive to advisors who offer highly favorable estimates of the outcomes of war. Such a predisposition, often shared by leaders on both sides of a conflict, is likely to produce a disaster. And this is not an isolated example.
In fact, when we constructed a list of the biases uncovered in 40 years of psychological research, we were startled by what we found: All the biases in our list favor hawks. These psychological impulses—only a few of which we discuss here—incline national leaders to exaggerate the evil intentions of adversaries, to misjudge how adversaries perceive them, to be overly sanguine when hostilities start, and overly reluctant to make necessary concessions in negotiations. In short, these biases have the effect of making wars more likely to begin and more difficult to end...
(Excerpt) Read more at foreignpolicy.com ...
Jonathan Renshon is a doctoral student in the Department of Government at Harvard University and author of Why Leaders Choose War: The Psychology of Prevention (Westport: Praeger Security International, 2006).
I have only excerpted a few key paragraphs. It seems they did a literature search and decided while the literature did not directly refer to war and peace decisions the general tenor was such they assumed this proved we too readily seek war.
This could be just another example of confirmation bias.
Confirmation bias exists when we select evidence which confirms our beliefs and ignores or diminishes evidence that disconfirms our beliefs.
Confirmation bias is most easily seen in politics, religion and other crowd behaviors. Confirmation bias is hard to change and critical thinkers have commented on the tendency to selectively determine facts on the basis of pre-existing belief.
The “how” of confirmation bias is most easily seen in political differences. Pull up FreeRepublic.com and then DailyKos.com and scan for opinions on taxes, the Iraq War, global warming or gay marriage. The real disagreements are not on opinion but the facts. Essentially, those on the right use one series of facts while those on the left use another. Occasionally, they use the same facts but with opposite interpretations. The outcome is that each believes the other is not only wrong but morally impaired since they have not argued from the facts.
Confirmation bias is both common and persistent yet it is not until recently we had an idea “why.”
Enormous advances in Magnetic Resonance Imaging permit a beginning answer.
There are areas of the brain associated with reasoning, emotion, conflict resolution, judgments and moral accountability as well as the area associated with the perception of reward and pleasure. There are many other brain functions determined by brain-imaging but the functions listed permit two important studies.
The first of these studies was accomplished by Dr. Drew Western at Emory University. He submitted the pictures of 2004 presidential candidates to 15 registered Democrats and 15 registered Republicans. Brain-imaging was then done while the pictures were presented.
The results were fascinating. Neither group showed activity in the reasoning portions of the brain but did show great activity in area associated with emotions. Beyond that the interaction of the brain areas resulted in the following conclusion: “Essentially it appears as if partisans twirl the cognitive kaleidoscope until they get the conclusions they want, and then they get massively reinforced for it, with the elimination of negative emotional states and activation of positive ones.”
A second study done by Dr. Iacoboni at UCLA showed much the same results. The doctors concluded that political allegiance was associated with emotional brain activity. Politics seems to be a gateway form of social interaction based on emotion with self regulation resulting in the suppression of negative feelings about the favored candidate and enhancement of negative feelings for the opposite candidate.
“Why” confirmation bias is so common and persistent seems to be that it is a function of emotional thinking. Our brains are so designed that it is the natural thing to do. We find it hard to change our “thinking” because we are not really thinking, we are “emoting.”
Mark Twain saw this a long time before brain-imaging was possible. He said, “We all do no end of feeling and we mistake it for thinking. And out of it we get an aggregation, which we consider a boon. Its name is public opinion. It is held in reverence. It settles everything. Some think it is the voice of God."
Well, if it is wired into us what can we do? Well for one thing, rather than looking for confirmation, we should try our best to refute our political convictions. Essentially, this is what scientists do by constantly trying to disprove their theories. By itself it is not always successful but it does create the opportunity for an open mind.
And when we debate it might be of help to remember Fritz Perls’ poem which was, “I do my thing. You do yours. If we meet it is wonderful. If we don’t it is nobody’s fault.”
(1)Austin Cline. “Flaws in Reasoning and Arguments: Confirmation Bias. URL: HERE
(2) Definition and description can be found “Neuroimaging: A Primer” by Keith Johnson of Harvard. URL: HERE
Michael Shermer Scientific American.com. “The Political Brain” URL: HERE
" We find it hard to change our “thinking” because we are not really thinking, we are “emoting.”"
How about this? We base our political preferences on a reasoning that takes place a limited number of times. I wasn't born believing communism is wrong. Neither did I have to revisit my original cogitations that communism is a horror every time the subject came up. To do so is a redundant waste of intellect.
Rather, once confirmed in my rationality, the notion of communism is consigned, along with my valution, into the emotional heirarchy such that communism brings up an automatic emotional response of 'no thanks.'
It isn't that political stuff is just emotion. The emotion is shorthand for all the baggage that the subject carries up to today. It didn't start out that way.
It's hard to change our 'thinking,' because the emoting is founded on prior evaluation that we would be foolish to throw away before re-examining the whole structure. Sometimes the whole structure is a life's experience telling us otherwise.
Yes, yes that is quite good. Thanks
"Why are hawks so influential?"
Faulty premise. Hawks are not influential, except when there's a war to be fought.
btt
Did we exaggerate the evil intent of Hitler? Of the Japanese warlords? Of the Soviet Communists? Of the 9/11 killers?
It's like Dennis Kucinich wrote this.
Want an illutration? One of the examples in the article I provided a link to involves a game theory problem where one person divides $10 and the second person gets to decide if both people keep the money or both people get nothing. The brilliant utilitarian game theories suggest that even if the first person splits the money $9 and $1, that the second person should take the money because $1 is better than nothing. That's nonsense. Why? Because if people normally accepted the unfair split, that's what they'd always get. Instead, because we are emotionally offended at an unfair split, the first person intuitively knows that if they want to get any money out of the deal, they need to split the money 50/50 because it will be rejected if it isn't. So what we get is fair splits, instead. So which world do you think produces a better and more properous society? The one where people take whatever they can get and don't care if it's fair or not or the one where people demand fair trades? I'll take the way our brains are hardcoded over idiot short-sighted game theorists, thanks.
Get very concerned when people talk about removing emotion from moral decisions and replacing it with purely reational thinking. That's how you create a psychopath. The emotional responses are good, whether they were put there by God or evolution.
Because they correctly size up dangerous situations. That increases the chances that Nobel Laureate twits like this can survive long enough to write this drivel.
"That you felt communism was horrific, even though the horrors never affected you personally requires empathy and so forth."
Not really. The horrors I imagined were what it would be like living in America under communism. My world history teacher in, I think, tenth grade berated me for saying that if you could get everyone up to the same economic level, communism could work. This would have been in the late fifties when you just didn't talk like that.
My first impressions of communism were as an economic system.
I was so ready to argue with you, I thought you were going to explain why the Dallas Cowboys were gonna lose to the Seattle Seahawks Saturday. Guess I'm gonna have to go vent somewhere else, LOL
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