Psychology and Decision making in Foreign Policy January 28, 2014.

Psychology and Decision making in Foreign Policy

January 28, 2014

Overview

Commonsensical understandings of rationalityIdeal and limits

Psychological models: the ‘cognitive revolution’

Neuroscience, emotion, and computation

Why rationality?

Traditional approaches to IRDecisions “should” be made rationallyForeign policy actors all assumed to be

rational actors

Commonsensical understanding of rationality: two models

1) Rational decision-making: the process that people “should” use to make choices:intuitively ranked preferences effectively pay attention to, evaluate and adapt to new information weigh consequences logical and discriminating, while open to new evidence (in their choices) coherent and consistent in responding to logical arguments.

2) Subjective probability estimates: even more demanding version of rationality that expects decision makers to be able effectively estimate probabilities:

Generate estimates of the consequences of their choices based opinions and past experience (no formal calculations)

Update these estimates with new evidence Work maximize their expected utility (benefit)

Appeal of using rational choice models

Help identify the choice leaders “should” make

Assume actors all use instrumental rationality, so…

Don’t have to worry about leaders’ preferences or expectations

Limits of commonsensical understanding of rationalityCan’t explain the beliefs and expectations

which lead to choice, a crucial missing variable in explaining foreign

policy

Don’t help much in understanding the process of foreign policy decision-making because unfortunately evidence shows we rarely make decisions that way.

Must examine the limits to rationalityEvidence from psychology and

neuroscience challenges the fundamental tenets of the rational model: Humans rarely conform to ‘rational’

expectations

Psychological models: the ‘cognitive revolution’

Four attributes compromise humans’ capacity for rational choice:

1. Simplicity

2. Consistency

3. Poor estimators

4. Loss aversion

Simplicity

In order to make complex decision, decision makers need to find ways to order and simplify information

Use of analogies and analogical reasoning is common tool to help simplify thingsTendency to draw simple one-to-one

analogies without qualifying conditionsImplications for FP?

Simplicity

Problem - we tend to be very bad at oversimplifyingLose the nuances and subtleties of the

contextPushes other options of the table and can

blind decision makers to possible consequences of their choice

Example

First Iraq war (1991)Saddam as HitlerProvides script for how to respond to

invasion of KuwaitBut doesn’t allow for examination of how

to situations are different.

Consistency

Idea that people don’t like inconsistency, so have tendency to discount or deny inconsistent information in order preserve their beliefs

Counter evidence can actually harden the original belief

“I wasn’t almost wrong, I was almost right”

Tetlock & belief system defences

Argue that local conditions didn’t meet conditions required for the predictionprediction not wrong the conditions weren’t right

Invoking the unexpected occurrence of a shock prediction wasn’t the problem, the unexpected

occurred

Close-call: I was almost right

Tetlock & belief system defences

Timing was off Prediction was just ahead of time, history will

show it was correct

International politics is unpredictableProblem isn’t the prediction, just the nature of

IR

Made the “right mistake” and would do it again

Unlikely things sometimes happen

More confident the person is in the prediction, the more threatening counter evidence is

More likely to resort to one the 7 belief system defences‘defensive cognitions’

Implications for FP?

Implications from consistency

When most need to revise their judgements is exactly when they may be least open to it.

E.g. US decision makers during Vietnam war

Solutions to consistency

People tend to change their beliefs incrementallyMake the smallest change possible

Counter evidence hardest to ignore when comes in large batchesCan’t ignore this and can cause dramatic shifts

Beliefs with relatively short-term consequences are easier to change

Implications for FP?

Poor estimators

Tendency to think causally rather than pay attention to the frequency of eventsE.g. - easy to imagine the causal

pathway to war so tend to overestimate its likelihood

Don’t like uncertainty so tend to seek false certainty

Use ‘heuristics’- short cuts, “rules of thumb” to make it easier to process information:Availability - tendency to interpret based on

what is most available in their cognitive repertoire

Representativeness- tendency to exaggerate similarities between one event and another

Anchoring - grab on to an initial value and stick to it

Fundamental attribution error- tendency to exaggerate the importance of the other’s disposition in explaining something they did, while explaining own behaviour based on situational constraints I.e. their bad behaviour is because they are bad people,

our bad behaviour is because of the situation we were in

hindsight bias- misremember what we predicted to be closer to the outcome than it was

Implications for FP?

Loss aversion

Tendency to see loss as more painful than a comparable gain is pleasant

So overvalue losses compared to gainsWilling to take greater risks to reverse a loss

Relatively risk adverse when things are going good and relatively risk acceptant when things are going badly

Implications for foreign policy?

Neuroscience, emotion, and computation

New imaging technology of the human brain suggests that many decisions are not the result of deliberative thought processes, but the product of

1. preconscious neurological processes

2. strong emotional responsesBoth incorporate subconscious actions and

decisions in progress, with the conscious brain playing catch-up

Impact on foreign policy decision-making Reflective, deliberative, rational decision-

making (underlying much in FPA) fits poorly with the cumulative body of evidence of how humans choose.

Emotion precedes conditions and follows choice; they influence decisions we feel before we think and often act before we think

Choice is a conflict between emotion and computation.

Emotional vs cognitive decision-making

Emotion-based system of decision-making (intuitive): preconscious, automatic, fast, effortless, associative, unreflective, slow to change

Cognitive decision-making(reasoned): conscious, slow, effortful, reflective, rule-governed, flexible

Vast majority of decisions made via emotional system; and tough for cognitive to ‘educate’ the emotional

‘The Ultimatum Game’: How would you choose?

‘The Ultimatum Game’

The game has been played across a wide range of situations and cultures, and

player 2 rejected less than 20% of the total offers because it found the offer humiliating.

Fear and anger in decisions

Research demonstrates:fear prompts uncertainty and risk-averse action, anger prompts certainty and risk-acceptance. Implications for FP?

Conclusion

Rational decision-making useful as:an aspiration or norm, aware that

foreign policy makers rarely meet that norm

contains counter-intuitive and non-obvious paradoxes that would be instructive if known by decision-makers

Conclusion

Can still use rational models, but need to use them with evidence from psychology and neuroscience.

Policy leaders need to be aware of the dynamics of choice.

Foreign policymakers are no less biased than other people, whose choice-making is preconscious and strongly influenced by emotion.

Conclusion

Learning and change is still possibleWe aren’t hostage to these tendencies

Key challenge is to understand, far better, how and when emotions are engaged, when they improve decisions, and how emotions engage with reflection and reasoning.