Unfortunately, statistical analysis is not natural for the average man in the street. Our bodies and brains, for that matter, may operate in statistically predictable ways, but few of us explicitly understand statistical principles. This is why the general audience gets so frustrated when they hear scientists in the media refusing to give a straight ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer to the questions that concern them. They want to know what to do about global warming, the dangers associated with childhood vaccination or how to prevent pandemic viruses. When answering, scientists talk in terms of probabilities rather than absolute certainties because they look at the big picture in which they know there is going to be some variation. That’s not what the general public wants to hear. They want to know whether vaccination will harm their children. They are less interested in the group because that is not the way individuals think.
The other problem with probability is that humans have not evolved to consider likelihood based on large amounts of data. Rather, we operate with heuristics – fast and dirty rules of thumb that generally serve us well. The German psychologist Gerd Gigerenzer has argued that humans have not evolved to work out probabilities such as those operating in the Monty Hall problem.12 We focus on the task as relevant to our self, and how it applies on an individual basis rather than on populations of people. We tend to only evaluate our own choices, not what is best for the group. Faced with two doors, my chances seem even. It’s only when I am faced with two doors a hundred times, or a hundred different people take the Monty Hall challenge, that the patterns become obvious.
We often do not know the true incidence of an event but rather guess at this figure based on whatever evidence we can accumulate. This is where all sorts of distortions in reasoning start to appear. In weighing up the evidence, we easily overestimate or underestimate risks based on the external information. For example, people’s naive estimates related to dying in airplane crashes are inflated because we tend to judge the occurrence of such events as more common than they truly are. These are called ‘dread risks’ and they attract more salience because they are so uncommon. It’s not surprising considering the dramatic coverage such tragedies generate. We focus on them and imagine what it must be like to die in such a helpless way. We attach more weight to these thoughts than we should because they are novel and draw our attention.
This inaccurate risk assessment can be potentially dangerous as we may be tempted to change our behaviour patterns based on faulty reasoning. For example, an analysis of road traffic accidents for cars travelling to New York in the three months following 9/11 showed an increase in fatalities over expected numbers for that time of year in the build up to Christmas.13 In fact, the inflated number was greater than the total number of airline passengers killed on that fateful day. Individuals frightened of flying to New York overestimated their risk and took to their cars instead, which led to heavier than usual traffic and the subsequent increase in road accidents. The most likely reason that people felt it was safer to drive was based on another illusion of the self, the illusion of control. We believe that we are safer when we think we are in control of our fate, such as when driving our own car, but feel unhappy when we are being driven by others or, worse still, flown around in a metal cylinder that can fall out of the sky, irrespective of what we do.
Analysis Paralysis
Much of the time our risk analysis is based on the perception of choice – can we get out of a sticky situation? It is often assumed that choice is good – that decision-making makes us happier if we are allowed to exercise some self-control. Most of us feel safer when we drive. When faced with the prospect of not being able to help our selves out of a situation we become despondent, depressed and helpless. Information on this reaction to the lack of control is based on experiments during the 1960s in which animals were put through stressful situations.14 In one study two sets of dogs were given electric shocks. One set of dogs could terminate the pain by learning to press a lever. The other set of dogs were yoked to the first group, but did not have the option to press a lever and so received the same amount of shocks. To them, there was nothing they could do to stop the pain because they had no choice.
After these initial experiences, both sets of dogs were then placed in a shuttle box with two sides separated by a short barrier. Again electric shocks were applied to the floor of the cage, but this time both sets of animals could avoid the pain by leaping the barrier to the other safe side of the box. What they discovered was very disturbing. Dogs that had experienced control in the first study with the lever readily learned to avoid the pain, but dogs that had not been able to avoid the electric shocks in the first study failed to jump the barrier to avoid punishment. They simply lay down on the cage floor whimpering and were resigned to their torture. According to Martin Seligman, the psychologist who conducted this research, the animals had ‘learned helplessness’.
It is not easy to read about this sort of animal experimentation in a detached way. I am not a great animal lover, but I think I would have found such research difficult to conduct. Nevertheless, these studies on inducing learned helplessness have proved invaluable in understanding factors that contribute to human misery and depression.15 Depression is probably one of the most common debilitating mental disorders. We have all had some experience of feeling low, but clinical depression is a pervasive illness that prevents people from leading a normal life. It can vary in its intensity, with behavioural and psychological symptoms usually related to feelings of worthlessness and despondency. It is commonly associated with other problems, most notably stressful life events such as bereavement, unemployment and addiction, though there is much individual variation. Some of us are more predisposed to depression because it is a complex disorder that has genetic, biological, psychological and social components.
Not all depression is the same in its origins, but it is statistically more common among the poor and deprived in our society.16 One theory is that it is not so much that poverty is the root cause but rather the circumstances that having no wealth entails – the inability of individuals to do anything about their lives. Like the inescapable shock of the dogs, people learn helplessness, which leads to the negative fatalism that things can never get better. The obvious solution is to empower people with choices. Some would argue that this is what wealth really brings – the opportunity to make choices and not be shackled to a life you can’t escape. If nothing changes no matter what you do, you have the basics for despair. The need for control appears to be fairly important for both physical and mental health.
Simply believing that you have the power to change your life makes it more bearable.17 This is one reason why Liz Murray’s “Homeless to Harvard” story offers such hope. We also saw this with free will when we learned that people develop rituals and routines because these behaviours give the illusion of control when in fact there is none. Giving people choices, or at least the perception of control, empowers them to tolerate more adversity. For example, people will tolerate more pain if they think they can turn it off at any moment even when they have no control over the stimulus. Perceived control attenuates the pain centres of the brain.18 We even enjoy our meal more if is there is choice on the menu.19 These sorts of findings support a generally held view that choice is good, and the more choices you have, the better. It’s a principle that modern societies exhibit through conspicuous consumerism. However, this is only true up to a point. Sometimes you can have too much choice that can overwhelm the self.