The Science of Fear — Dan Gardner
“Of course, Head can always step in, look at the evidence, and overrule. As we have seen, it routinely does not. But even if it did, it could only modify or overrule Gut’s judgment, not erase it. Head can’t wipe out intuition. It can’t change how we feel.”
Review:
Despite the book cover design being worthy of a post on r/CrappyDesign (neon green background, large spider taking up the entire cover, author name in an odd font, etc.), this was a decent book. Gardner explains how certain tendencies of our mind and our emotions played a large role in our evolution as a species, but have become increasingly troublesome as they aren’t quite suited to modern times. He runs through classic cognitive biases that you probably learn about in any college psychology course (anchoring, representative bias, availability heuristic, affect heuristic…) and explains how these biases can totally screw up effective decision making. In fact, being swayed by our emotions and our unconscious mind — what Gardner calls Gut — as opposed to listening to our rational mind (Head) can lead to behavior that is seemingly sensible but actually dangerous. The best example of this was how after 9/11, thousands of people decided that flying was not safe and starting driving more instead. The vividness of 9/11 and the intense fear it induced in thousands of people caused people to drastically overweigh the probability of becoming a victim of a terrorist attack. Of course, if you look at the statistics, driving is actually much more dangerous than flying. It’s estimated that an extra 1,500 people lost their lives in car accidents the year after 9/11 because of their decision to switch from flying to driving.
Gardner does a very thorough job of debunking common misconceptions about the risks of certain events, particularly terrorist attacks, getting cancer from man-made chemical exposure, or getting kidnapped. I enjoyed how he dismantles in a step-by-step fashion this common notion that the average American is at risk of being a terrorist attack victim:
· 9/11 was a dramatic deviation from what terrorism usually entails
· Even including the toll of 9/11, international terrorism poses an incredibly small risk to the life of any individual American
· Even if there were a long series of attacks in the US the size of 9/11, the risk to any one American would still be much smaller than other risks people routinely shrug off
· Outside the Middle East and South Asia, the rate of international terrorist attacks has been falling for more than a decade
· It is very difficult to deploy (let alone obtain) chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons, and even if terrorists managed it, the toll would likely be a small fraction of the nightmare scenarios painted in the media
· Even if terrorists succeeded in launching an attack on the US many times the size of 9/11, the threat to any one person would still be small, and the US would still remain the most prosperous and powerful nation in the world
· Despite all this, almost 50% of Americans are worried that they or their families could be killed by terrorists
It was literally just a few weeks ago that a terrorist ran a rental truck down a bike-path and killed eight people in NYC. An event like that is so vivid and close to home that the natural response is to feel fear and that the risk of being a victim is much higher than statistics would imply. And that’s largely Gardner’s point: our brains aren’t really adapted to think in terms of statistics and large numbers. It’s far easier to think in terms of stories, narratives, images, and emotions elicited by certain events. Because this event will be so easy to call to mind (availability heuristic) and it evokes very strong negative emotions (affect heuristic) this will cause me to greatly overweigh the probability of something like this happening to me. But of course, when we look at the numbers, the risk is simply de minimis.
Gardner also talks about how the media, entertainment industry, and the government all play a role in perpetuating fear and false narratives. These narratives are sometimes driven by very particular incentives and interests, but other times they are simply the result of human nature. We’re naturally intrigued by the rare, incredible (and mostly tragic) events we see on the news. Fear both sells and gets attention, and the people who are able to use it to their advantage certainly do. The author does a good job going into the details of how media feedback loops begin and change society’s collective perception of a given risk — and the awful choices we may make as a society as a result.
I found parts of the book to be slightly repetitive and hard to digest. Gardner throws out a lot of statistics, studies, and facts in fairly lengthy paragraphs. It’s sometimes difficult to understand the overall structure or driving point of a given chapter. But overall it was an enjoyable and useful read. I’d say if you wanted a better read on cognitive biases you should just go straight to Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow, as Gardner cites it repeatedly anyway. Michael Maubossin’s Think Twice goes into similar material, but also discusses implications for investing.
Score: 6/10
Notes:
· Fear can be a constructive emotion — when we worry about a risk, we pay more attention to it and take action where warranted; it keeps us alive and thriving. But unreasoning fear is another matter, one that is causing us to make increasingly foolish decisions with the risks we face every day.
· Heuristics
o Anchoring and adjustment — our estimates tend to influenced unconsciously by arbitrary or recent factors/numbers, and we usually fail to adjust enough away from those anchors when making an estimate
o Representativeness — when trying to identify something or estimate probabilities based on limited information, we tend to lump things into categories (or stereotypes) that share similar features in order to come up with snap judgments; the heuristic generally favors outcomes that make good stories or good hypotheses; a detailed scenario of causally linked and representative events may appear more probable than a subset of those events
o Availability heuristic — the easier to recall examples of something, the more common it must be; ease of recall can be affected by vividness, novelty, concentration, repetition
o Affect heuristic — the unconscious mind may instantly experience a raw feeling or intuition towards something as either good or bad, which then colors our estimations of risks and benefits about that thing
· Emotional labels and feelings towards something/someone can stick even if we are not consciously aware they exist
o Positive feeling for something can also simply be created by repeated mere exposure to it (familiarity breeds liking)
o Emotional stickiness has some implications:
§ We can’t ease fears about a risk by simply getting the facts out — our natural inclination is to go with our intuitive (not rational) judgment
§ It makes us vulnerable to scary scenarios; we react more impulsively to emotionally charged thoughts or scenarios even if there likelihood is very low, but on the other hand, we may not react enough to equally dangerous scenarios that aren’t emotionally charged
· The brain has difficulty dealing with or “feeling” the significance of numbers, statistics, and randomness
o Gambler’s fallacy, the hot hand myth, buying insurance after a natural disaster
o However, the more numerate people are, the less likely they are to be tripped up by intuitive mistakes
· Judgments about risk are often difficult and important, which are usually the conditions under which people are most likely to conform to the views of the group and feel confident they are right to do so
o Poor judgments can then be perpetuated by confirmation bias — embracing information that supports the current view while ignoring/rejecting information that casts doubt on it
o It doesn’t really matter if someone forms a belief based on nothing more than the fact other people around him hold that belief; once exposed to it, the person will unknowingly screen new information according to that confirmation bias
o Groups also usually come to conclusions that are more extreme than the average view of the individuals who make up the group
o We don’t review information about risks with detachment and objectivity; we screen it according to current beliefs, and what we currently believe is deeply influenced by both the beliefs of those around us and the culture in which we live
· The media feedback loop
o More reporting on a certain risk factor puts more examples and more emotions into brains
o Public concern rises, and reporters respond with more reporting, which increases general fear in the public, and so on
o More fear and more reporting lead us to drastically overweigh the probability of statistically very rare events (ex: chance of a child getting kidnapped, or being the victim of a school shooting)
o Since the media focuses on individual crimes while ignoring general crime levels, rising crime will always get far more attention than falling crime
o The media image of crime is essentially upside down — crimes that are by far the most common are ignored because they are mundane and boring, while the rarest (and most heinous) crimes get by far the most attention
o The media also tends to steer towards dramatic, violent, and catastrophic causes of death (as opposed to slow, quiet killers like diabetes), which causes us to vastly overweigh the risks these events pose to us on a daily basis
· Our focus on tiny risks that evoke unsettling, intense emotions distracts us from much larger risks that are far more important
o By most estimates, more than half of all cancers in the developed world could be prevented with simple lifestyle changes (exercise, diet, not smoking)
o But preaching lifestyle changes is a much harder message to get across, and it doesn’t affect us in an emotional way like a story about synthetic chemicals or carcinogens may be causing cancer
· Debunking the terrorism risk
o 9/11 was a dramatic deviation from what terrorism usually entails
o Even including the toll of 9/11, international terrorism poses an incredibly small risk to the life of any individual American
o Even if there were a long series of attacks in the US the size of 9/11, the risk to any one American would still be much smaller than other risks people routinely shrug off
o Outside the Middle East and South Asia, the rate of international terrorist attacks has been falling for more than a decade
o It is very difficult to deploy (let alone obtain) chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons, and even if terrorists managed it, the toll would likely be a small fraction of the nightmare scenarios painted in the media
o Even if terrorists succeeded in launching an attack on the US many times the size of 9/11, the threat to any one person would still be small, and the US would still remain the most prosperous and powerful nation in the world
o Despite all this, almost 50% of Americans are worried that they or their families could be killed by terrorists
· The comprehensive feedback loop
o An American starts with the strong feeling that terrorism is a serious threat because that’s what the memories and feelings of 9/11 lead him to conclude
o This sense is confirmed by statements of the government, police departments, security experts, the media, pundits, and the entertainment industry
o This person is surrounded by others who have similar memories and get their information from the same sources
o In the face of this consensus, it’s only natural to go with the group, especially with a matter this important
o Having this new strongly held belief, this person will fall victim to confirmation bias, seeking out more information to confirm their view (and dismissing anything that may disagree with it)
o This can lead to this person’s fear of terrorism actually rising without there having been any terrorist attacks over multiple years
Phrases/Quotes:
· Of course, Head can always step in, look at the evidence, and overrule. As we have seen, it routinely does not. But even if it did, it could only modify or overrule Gut’s judgment, not erase it. Head can’t wipe out intuition. It can’t change how we feel.
· “Unreasoning fear,” as Roosevelt called it, may be bad for those who experience it and society at large, but it’s wonderful for shareholders. The opportunities for growth are limitless. All that’s required is that fears keep rising, and those who reap the profits know which buttons to push in our Stone Age minds to ensure that happens.
· Prime-time television is an endless Darwinian contest to create novel scenarios of human life abused and extinguished, with each killing a little more exotic, explicit, and divorced from reality.
· Whatever challenges we face, it remains indisputably true that those living in the developed world are the safest, healthiest, and richest humans who ever lived. We are still mortal and there are many things that can kill us. Sometimes we should worry. Sometimes we should even be afraid. But we should always remember how very lucky we are to be alive now.
