Occur. Behavioral models research reasoning
In the era of the internet, people are left [for dead] to get information through search engines, social media, or educational institutes, and none of it provides comprehensive real-world analysis or suggestions on how to live or where to go.
Behavioral models research could provide a standard for human knowledge mapping, gather data about and analyze professional and personal paths taken, provide suggestions of professional development for younger people, provide constant socio-economic analysis and identify arising issues in the population.
What models are being reinforced nowadays
Aggressive marketing and selective responsibility induce optimization for short-term profit in masses. Due to the lack of social stability or predictability, the future either might not exist or be irrelevant due to facing possible negative outcomes. It creates a defined pattern in behavior when people exist in a vacuum of their bounded model of reality. Cognitive dissonance produced by the difference between the maximized ideal fed to them by social media and the reality they see around forces them to be afraid of going out of their bubble and therefore impairs both the critical thinking and opportunities that form outside. Selective recommendations of social media provide a positive feedback loop for their way of thinking and a negative feedback loop for facing any different one. Facing reality becomes only a struggle, and it prevents any attempts from making any real difference in society.
The other side is where people are full of lies to the extent so they believe in it themselves, and feed it to everyone around, and those who fall for it keep the lie alive.
Red and blue pills became the real choice everybody makes. Society created its own simulacrum.
Irresponsible models are being reinforced, either because everything is good around, or because everything is so bad around.
Social ladder and its purpose for society
The social ladder is supposed to be an ultimate selective evolutionary process, meaning the mechanism is the same as in nature, that leads intellectually gifted individuals to the higher ranks in the hierarchy so they can provide additional value to the masses through their work. There is an optimum of inequality in the society that produces healthy competitiveness and a viable social ladder.
No inequality seduces competitiveness and too much inequality produce revolutions.
The problem of definition and cognitive biases in a perceived meritocracy
Due to differences in our experiences we all have different representations of reality built in our consciousness. The degree of difference is debatable, but it is supposed to shrink with proper education. Society is formed to transfer information from person to person seamlessly as it creates more complex and resourceful structures — it’s an evolutionary advantage, same goes for language invention and educational institutes. Yet we are far away from an ideal. Our brains have limited capacity and we have to repack our knowledge with the new information arrival, therefore we have slightly different worlds, slightly different word meanings, slightly different perceptions.
With blind Data Science approach for short-term profit optimization for social media, it produces a positive feedback loop for different worldviews, and even though it lets them evolve quicker, it also produces instability and enhances competitiveness. The latter is usually perceived positively, but in a life-or-death scenario, it might have tragic consequences.
Aside from differences in the definition of merits and therefore its evaluation and comparison, and the overall correlation of “merits” and assets owned [you can see family businesses as the new way of monarchy], the problem of perceived meritocracy comes down to Survivorship bias.
Meritocracy reflects the current or previous state of the country/population; meritocracy without a standard of merits is a cognitive bias, either survivorship bias or self-fulfilled prophecy.
Conclusion
In a world that can quickly fall into extremes, it’s important to research behavioral models to gather information about society and its development. If Data Science can abuse cognitive biases to produce more profits for companies, it also should be used to better understand problems such an approach creates. Transparency and defined word meaning — at least in the job market — is crucial for long-term technological and economic development. Sacrificing the present is the only way to make a better future.
We are setting standards and creating reality around us, behavioral models research could provide information necessary to evade mistakes for future generations.
