Part Two: Understanding Heuristics and Biases in Homeland Security: Dual Process Theory
Every human brain has not one but two systems of thought. The ancient Greeks arrived at this conception of humanity a little earlier than scientists. They personified the two systems in the form of the gods — Dionysus and Apollo. Moreover, a century ago, the psychologist William James divided human thought into two types — associative and true reasoning. James understood associative thinking as the kind of processing of information from historical patterns and rules of the mind and true reasoning was the kind of thinking that took longer for problems associated with novel situations, which required deeper analysis. These two kinds of thinking became known as the dual process theory.
System One and System Two
Fast forward to the twentieth century, when the 2002 Nobel Prize in Economics winner Daniel Kahneman, renamed the two kinds of thinking as System One and System Two. System One or intuitive thinking, represents a primitive part of the mind that makes quick judgments about people and events. System One utilizes the brainstem and the amygdala in its thinking process. Its embedded rules, with their biases toward the familiar, stears people toward their most basic goals: survival and reproduction. Kahneman in his book, “Thinking Fast and Slow,” describes the dual systems of thought. System Two is more effortful and it works on mental activities that require complex computations. System Two uses the prefrontal cortex in its thinking process. The automatic operations of System One generate surprisingly complex patterns of ideas, but only the slower System Two can construct thoughts in an orderly series of steps.
Daniel Gardner, in his book, “The Science of Fear: How the Culture of Fear Manipulates Your Brain,” notes, “[t]he simple rules of thumb System One uses allow it to assess a situation and render a judgment in an instant — which is exactly what you need when you see a shadow move at the back of an alley and you don’t have the latest crime statistics handy.” Essentially, the two systems of thought boil down to feeling and reason.
Decision-making is an important part of what people do every day. Even deciding not to make a decision, is a decision. When we do make decisions, especially in homeland security when so much is at stake, it is important to examine the cognitive thinking processes that go into finally deciding on a course of action. Fortunately, the cognitive processes for decision-making and judgment have been studied for quite some time.
In 1974, Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman gathered together several years’ work and wrote a paper with the impressively dull title of “Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases.” They published it in Science magazine, rather than a specialist journal, because they thought some of the insights might be interesting to non-psychologists. Their work revolutionized academic research on human judgment. Their central theme is that judgment under uncertainty is prone to errors in thinking based on rules of thumb thinking called “heuristics,” and biases. As mentioned earlier in the dual processing theory, both heuristics and biases can be connected with the family of cognitive operations known as System One — the intuitive, automatic system that works fast and without a lot of effort.
Daniel Kahneman talks in depth about the dual systems of thinking from his book, “Thinking, Fast and Slow” at Google.
The Pattern Seeking Brain
The brain seeks efficiency wherever it can by using System One. The brain’s quest for efficiency is often found in the use of patterning and clustering of information. It uses patterns and clusters of information to make predictions and assumptions about the world. Often, the brain’s need for order in pattern making and predictability by making assumptions, can lead to making patterns where there are none, and this is where the homeland security practitioner can get into trouble. The brain just loves the warm and fuzzy comfort of patterns.
Diane Ackerman talks about the pleasure of patterning in, “I Sing the Body’s Pattern Recognition Machine,” she notes…
“Pattern pleases us, rewards a mind seduced and yet exhausted by complexity. We crave pattern, and find it all around us, in petals, sand dunes, pine cones, contrails. Our buildings, our symphonies, our clothing, our societies — all declare patterns. Even our actions: habits, rules, codes of honor, sports, traditions — we have many names for patterns of conduct. They reassure us that life is orderly.”
In 2009, Bernard D. Beitman wrote an article in Psychiatric Annals, called “Brains Seek Patterns in Coincidences,” that through the pattern recognition of the brain, the world appears more orderly and more predictable. Patterning and clustering of information is part of the function of the amygdala. Human minds abhor chaos. Pattern finding helps with survival by the recognition of the familiar. However, this drive for pattern recognition may seek out causal relationships between events where there are none which can lead to errors in judgment. Usually the brain uses familiar patterns because we’ve known them to be true in the past. However, this over reliance on our favorite patterns, limits our choices and problem solving ideas.
David Disalvo, in his text, “What Makes Your Brain Happy and Why You Should Do the Opposite,” says that “[t]he human brain evolved to identify patterns by connecting pieces of information in our environment and while this hardwired habit has been vital to our survival and generally serves us well, it also leads us to make something out of nothing.”
The key point here is that the brain uses a lot of what it already knows to make sense of the world, even when presented with brand new information, which makes us prone to biases.
In Part Three: Understanding Heuristics and Biases in Homeland Security, I will explore common heuristics in decision-making and judgment.
Angi English has a Master’s in Security Studies from the Naval Postgraduate School’s Center for Homeland Defense and Security and a Master’s in Educational Psychology from Baylor University. She is also a Licensed Professional Counselor and Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in Texas. She lives in Austin.
Note: This is part two of a multi-part series on Heuristics and Biases in Homeland Security. Each part builds on the preceding post. It may be helpful to begin with reading, Part One: Understanding Heuristics and Biases in Homeland Security: The Triune Brain
