Every decision we make involves uncertainty, and uncertainty entails risk: Should I grocery shop, or hike, or stop to chat, or wear a mask and gloves, or go to church? We like to think that our decisions are logical, but Nobel Prize-winning research has shown that many times we fall short of rationality – often because of common biases we share.
These can affect how we respond to the risks accompanying the COVID-19 outbreak. A web search for “biases in decision-making” shows more than 50. It is felt they are mental shortcuts that evolved from a time when quick decisions were important for survival. We’ll discuss a few.
Decision factors. One of the strongest influences in decision-making is termed loss aversion. Most of us will forgo the opportunity for gain, even large gains, in order to avoid the risk of loss. A related factor is the negativity bias that many share; we often weigh more heavily the possible negative results of a decision than we do the positive.As you watch your neighbors or our national leaders in this crisis, try to decide where they see the “loss.” For some, the loss of lives must be avoided no matter the economic risk. Others may see the loss of freedom or of economic prosperity as so important they’ll accept the medical risks. Still others may fear loss in self-image or respect from others. Whatever we believe the loss to be, we might overweight it while underweighting possible gains from alternative decisions.
When you see someone isolating while their neighbor entertains, decide what loss each is avoiding. We have difficulty believing that others aren’t responding as we are, but it’s possible that they fear different losses.
The pull of the group. A second area where our rationality can fail grows out of herd behavior. Being part of a group was critical to our survival, and that pull continues. Earlier, it might have been expressed as “Ooh, everyone else suddenly scampered up a tree; I don’t see any threat, but I’d better start climbing.” Now, it seems to be “Whoa, look at all those shopping carts loaded with toilet paper ...”More evident in the response to the coronavirus is tribal allegiance. We all belong to tribes, often more than one – from our workplace, our church home, our family, our political affiliation. Tribes establish an “us vs. them” dichotomy, they encourage common behaviors and they discount the opinions of outsiders. Even now when we all face a serious, common enemy, we see tribal differences: red vs. blue; urban vs. rural; medical vs. political; old vs. young. Our choices frequently come not from logic but from our tribes and their leaders.
The information we use. Often, the information we use for decisions is that which we most easily recall; this is the availability heuristic. The most easily recalled is recent, is constantly repeated or is emotionally charged. Furthermore, the information we store has survived the well-known confirmation bias, which we use to filter what we hear. Once we have made a decision, we hear and record information that confirms that decision, while conflicting information is often ignored.A third factor in our filing of information is the halo effect. We grant people we like or respect a “halo” and consider things they say and do to be right, even in areas outside their expertise. The converse is also true: If we have little respect for a person, we discount what he or she says before the words are spoken.
As a result of these information filters, we all make choices based on different subsets of the available information, and some information in those subsets may be incomplete or inaccurate.
This small sample of our biases indicates how differently people collect and process information and then use it in making decisions; we should not expect identical reactions to the risks of COVID-19. By realizing that our decisions may not be rational, we might better understand the actions of ourselves and others. This irrationality underscores that we are human, and unfortunately, being human makes us vulnerable to the coronavirus.
Chuck Carson is a retired engineer and an adjunct professor at Fort Lewis College; his Ph.D. is in applied probability.
