Cognitive Bias, Terror, and the Media

A Saturday op-ed in the New York Times describes how cognitive biases often lead us to react to terrorism in less-than-maximally rational ways.  Here's a sample:

[T]his emotional system can be an extremely naïve statistician, because it was built for a primitive environment with simple dangers. That might work for you the next time you run into a snake or a tiger. But because the emotional system is impressionable and prefers shallow, social and anecdotal information to abstract data, it hinders our ability to cope with the more sophisticated risks that afflict modern life.

For example, the death of an acquaintance in a motorcycle accident would be more likely to deter you from riding a motorcycle than would a dispassionate, and undoubtedly far more representative, statistical analysis of motorcycles' dangers. You might avoid Central Park on the basis of a single comment at a cocktail party, rather than bothering to read the freely available crime statistics that provide a more realistic view of the odds that you will be victimized.

This primacy of the emotions can distort our decision-making. Travelers at airports irrationally tend to agree to pay more for terrorism insurance than they would for general insurance, which includes terrorism coverage. No doubt the word "terrorism" can be specific enough to evoke an emotional reaction, while the general insurance offer wouldn't awaken the travelers' anxieties in the same way.

Perhaps the most controversial part the op-ed is this conclusion:

Like pharmaceutical companies, the news media should study the side effects of their product, one of which is the distortion of the viewer's mental risk map. Because of the way the brain is built, images and striking narratives may well be necessary to get our attention. But just as it takes a diamond to cut a diamond, the news industry should find ways to use images and stories to bring us closer to the statistical truth.

Comments

[Nick]

Very interesting article. The conclusion brings to mind all the missing child and shark attack stories of late, stories that, to my mind, exaggerate the threat of an actual abduction or shark attack relative to other serious risks to public health and safety that go under reported.