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Psychology and Decision making in Foreign Policy. January 28, 2014. Overview. Commonsensical understandings of rationality Ideal and limits Psychological models: the ‘cognitive revolution’ Neuroscience, emotion, and computation. Why rationality?. Traditional approaches to IR - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
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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.