Decisions and basic instincts.

As I was going through all the articles and book chapters on the subject of 'decisions from experience' I found out that although it was very interesting to investigate this material, there seemed to be a subject-related area that was not discussed in those papers.

The fact is that I was hoping to read something ‘much more risky’ than flipping coin experiments when I first saw the article by Hertwig et al (2004). This is because my definition of ‘risk’ is probably very narrow – generally related to life/health threatening situations. Of course, we can be involved in risky situations when putting money on horses or playing at a casino in the financial aspect. As this matter is significant and definitely worth investigating in the context of cognitive psychology, I began to wonder how do we make decisions in very serious conditions? Why do some people run towards a perpetrator when someone is under attack, while other people look away? Or (true stories) how a mother can be so determined to save her child from pain that she lifts the car as it stops on her son’s foot? How is it possible that a pregnant woman who wants to save herself/her child during a flood, climbs up a tree and gives birth alone and then bites off the umbilical cord?

First of all, I must admit that recently I have been pretty much interested in evolutionary psychology – especially when it comes to situations related to potential loss of health or life by an individual or his relative, which is very interesting as it seems, that according to statistics we are very likely to kill for someone we love or someone we love. Statistics for England made in cooperation with WHO say that almost half of the female victims were killed by partners or ex-partners. In general, more than 80% of the murderers were not committed by serial killers, contract killers and so forth. This led certain researchers to a simple conclusion, according to which there are situations, in which our decisions are based on some sort of animal instincts.

Another aspect concerns our interest in defending others. Obviously, an old lady will not stop a thief with a high kick. However, why is it so that some of physically strong males would decide to intervene as they see someone getting assaulted, whereas other would turn away? We may assume that these situations should be considered in terms of courage or fighting skills. But then again there are people who did not have any professional training and act almost ‘without thinking’ in such risky conditions. Perhaps, such a condition comes from principles that were learned by one at home.

Then again what if a person knows that it is not the case, because he did not discuss this topic with anyone? It is just something that happens. The decision is made in less than a second every time this sort of reaction is optional. Apart from that and in terms of making decisions (sometimes instinctively - at a young age) about future careers it seems that particular roles fascinate definite types of people. Probably that is why some become soldiers, some teachers, some corporate executives and others forensic pathologists.

A/H1N1, the media and the framing effect.

My previous post was concerned with framing in relation to public statements and media coverage of the H1N1 - swine flu. It is an interesting subject to discuss, especially in terms of the psychological impact that the public debate has on the society. Dr Hardman constructed a comment that involved a plot which made me productive in regard to his observation: "Lord Drayson, recently suggested that the media have behaved quite responsibly in their coverage of H1N1 (swine flu)". In the context of Lord Drayson's suggestion I must present some constructive criticism.

Framing in my opinion is visible in the media coverage, especially in relation to H1N1. Maybe I am being a little bit oversensitive, but I do believe that language manipulations can lead to opinion-shaping. As I was watching news yesterday, journalists made following statements: "It is another death of a patient suffering from H1N1", "this was another death of a patient, who's been infected" or "another person died, who was confirmed to be H1N1 positive". What is important here is the fact that this information does not determine a definite cause of death. As in this abstract example: can someone be a national hero and a traitor at the same time? One general of a communist country was aware of the fact that the ruling party kills members of the opposition. Thus, he decided to betray the country - ruled by the communist government and turns to CIA/foreign generals for help. When it comes to H1N1, many patients simultaneously suffered from other diseases such as pneumonia. In some cases it had been clearly stated that pneumonia was the the cause of death, even though a flu virus was also present. A transparent statement would be the one, in which we would be clearly informed that the patient died 'from' the H1N1 or 'because of' the virus.

As far as Lord Drayson's suggestion is concerned, I try to investigate issues before presenting my beliefs. My criticism in this particular case comes from a potential coincidence related to his past. From the official BIS website (Department for Business Innovation and Skills) we know that: '(...) In 1993, he co-founded the vaccine company PowderJect Pharmaceuticals plc in Oxford and was Chairman and Chief Executive until 2003. He floated PowderJect on the London Stock Exchange in 1997. Over ten years he built PowderJect into one of the world’s leading vaccine companies with operations in the UK, USA and Scandinavia, until selling it for £540 million in 2003".

One of the quality newspapers told us about what his company was producing: "(...) Drayson is chairman and chief executive of Powderject Pharmaceuticals, which makes many of the vaccines taken by children across Britain. His family stake in it is worth £105m. Among the products of Powderject's Evans Vaccines subsidiary are jabs for tetanus, flu, hepatitis B and the BCG vaccine for tuberculosis" (Guardian, Jan 2002).

In year 2003, Drayson decides to finalise the sale transaction: " Paul Drayson, the Labour donor and founder of PowderJect Pharmaceuticals, will pocket more than £40m after agreeing to sell the company to US rival Chiron. (...) Mr Drayson used the company's highly-rated paper to acquire profitable vaccine companies while the market was excited by the device, and made the company into a major player in flu vaccines (...)" (Telegraph, May 2003).

Finally, Chiron is a company of a full name: 'Chiron a Novartis Business' and as some of you may know, Novartis is one of the greatest distributors and producers of new H1N1 vaccines and already has contracts with Germany (5.11.09) and Switzerland (12.11.09) .

To sum up, I am not trying to imply that Lord Drayson has a personal/profit-based reason to support the media in causing H1N1 panic within the society, as this would be a conspiracy theory based on unidentified evidence. Nevertheless, my analysis arises from the fact that most certainly he does have serious links to the industry, which may benefit from his attitute or decisions, taking his current political and governmental position into consideration.



References:

http://www.bis.gov.uk/ministers/lord-drayson

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2002/jan/19/2

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/2852426/PowderJect-sale-nets-40m-for-Drayson.html

http://www.novartis.com/newsroom/media-releases/index.shtml

'Let me reframe the statement. You will feel better, I promise.'

The framing effect is a very interesting subject. As I forgot to ask two questions during our last session, I will try to discuss them in this post. The first one is concerned with justifying statements and the second one with leading questions.

1. The swine flu is a great danger.

Our mind plays games with us all the time. According to my understanding, the subject that we discussed last friday is closely related to the general subject of 'why do we rephrase sentences'. For me, personally, there is no difference between the famous break up lines: 'it's not you - it's me' and 'it's not me, it's you', as the outcome is obviously the same. As human beings we tend to have a preference in terms of forming sentences - depending on the situation. The example I would prefer to examine is the swine flu - sold to us as something extremely harmful.

Even if you are not the '24/7 news-eater type', you must have heard about the famous H1N1 Influenza. Mass-media influence shaped the public opinion on this matter, which I believe is a great example of using something similar to 'the framing effect'. People started to make decisions such as: I will not travel to Europe, UK especially, because of the swine flu. This is actually quite terrifying as it shows how much the media present certain information and thus form our understanding of a particular problem. In order to see how inadequate is being serious about 'the swine flu pandemic' we can simply rely on the statistics, that in terms of death numbers are very clear: until september 2009 there were about 1600 dead victims of swine flu in the US (flucount.org). Simultaneously, the Centers for Disease Control estimates 36,000 people die annually in the United States from the regular flu (abc news). What is more, ss far as I remember, the first name that the virus H1N1 was given was the 'Mexican flu' (from the 'huge' number of casualties). If people would actually think more scientifically they would know, that poorer countries, in which medicines are not easily accessible, always have higher numbers of deaths.

2. Where was he standing when he shot her?

But how do you know that he actually shot her - would be my question. Leading questions are often used in courtrooms and police stations. The 'framing theory' relates to building problem-represantations that determine decisions. But at the same time there is no theory that explains why and when the framing effect occurs (Maule, Villejoubert 2007). My guess is that it is a perfect 'window of opportunity' to influence our judgment. Leading questions are not as easily detectable as one might think - especially in stresfull conditions, interviewing etc. E.g. when I was 12 I was hit by a car driven by a female. I remember all the details that actually matched the evidence material (skid marks etc.). She happened to be a friend of one of the police officers who were asking me same questions in different ways, such as:

-What was your position before you started to run towards the other side of the road as you saw the car ?
-Where were you before you jumped towards the other end of the pedestrian presinct even though the car was coming?

Giving the answer to the second question especially makes me guilty of the whole incident for instance.

It seems to me that leading questions and certain statements do have influence on our judgment and are somehow related to the framing effect that occurs during the process. The question is to what extent can we actually control it.


References:

Maule, J., & Villejoubert, G. (2007). What lies beneath: Reframing framing effects.
Thinking & Reasoning, 13 (1), 25-44.

http://www.flucount.org/

http://www.abcactionnews.com/news/local/story/Common-flu-far-more-deadly-than-swine-flu-in-U-S/SYwVqQF_3Umy0qY3qhp9zQ.cspx

Measuring utility functions.

It seems my graphs look similar until they reach the approximate x=500; y=0.85 point on the probability graph. It seems to me that while analysing the task on probability, I presented more distance in terms of 'showing a potential gambler's nature'. The higher the amount - the more certainty I expected to have.

Simultaneously, I have noticed that somehow I tend to look differently at percents than exact amounts of money when considering such tasks. While comparing the y axes of both graphs I realised that I tended to be more cautious in case of describing the probability. While the utility numbers for certainty task were 0.25, 0.5, 0.75 - the percentage probability numbers were slighlty higher in my case: 0.3, 0.6, 8.5. At the same time it seems that in such tasks - when amount options vary from 0 - 1000, I prefer to operate within average numbers - 250 being the lowest, 650 being the highest.

Interestingly, the 650 figure also being my average monthly accommodation/living spendings, which fact produced a belief that it is possible I could 'gamble' for more than that - depending on the financial status. In terms of qualifying to a certain group, my guess is I would be in the 'average/passiv' risk taker. However, we may assume that some of us would act differently, in case someone has given us real money in order to make such an experiment in real conditions. I remember playing monopoly, owning properties but possessing no funds. On the other hand, even in terms of very little sums, I must admit I did motivate myself and was much more careful while playing Texas Hold'em poker.

‘I don’t know why, but I must be right.’

An issue has been discussed, which seems to be particularly interesting in terms of 'fast and frugal' way of conclusion reaching in relation to conscious and subconscious decision making. The idea here is to introduce some real-life cases and confront them with rational/conscious versus subconscious conclusion-drawing or judging process. I hope that any potential readers would find these cases at least a bit more amusing than a coroner’s report.

Case 1: Probability
A body of a female with several head injuries had been found. It was discovered that those were caused by an axe which was found next to her body (Keiser-Nielsen, 1984). Without second thoughts we would presume that she must had been a victim of a homicide, as we would not believe that someone would want to commit suicide with the use of an axe. Nevertheless, the death was accepted as the "most unusual case of suicide" and was reported by Willy Munck in his journal (1937).

Now we may have imagination, but I guess I am not the only one who would presume that this had to be a homicide case. Obviously, this is an extreme example and there must have been some information that determined a particular decision, but this interesting model shows us how quickly a judgment or misjudgement can be formed, when based on one rational aspect. My guess is that our judgment in this case is a result of the juxtaposition of probabilities related to a single piece of information. But who would expect someone to commit suicide by finding a way to make a car run him over?

Case 2: Order and vision
Entry begins with: ‘Case NO 13: Homicide by stabbing’. The accused enters the room with a ‘very sorry face’, does not talk, keeps his head low and sits down. The evidence is being presented and the legally-unprofessional judges (lay magistrates) learn that the accused wanted to rob a jewellery shop with the use of knife; but as the shopkeeper decides to defend his property, the accused stabs him – lethally. There are fingerprints, DNA samples etc.; the defendant’s statement says: ‘I am guilty of causing unintentional harm with a weapon while committing an act that is legally prohibited’. The decision – in favour for unconditional custody - is reached in approx. 20 minutes.
Following case begins with similar entry: ‘Case NO 14: Homicide by stabbing’. The accused enters the room under same circumstances – does not talk, keeps his head low and even acts as if he did not pay any attention at all to what is happening around him. He does not have a statement; he also does not answer any questions addressed to him. In less than 2 minutes, a decision based on arguments from the previous case is made and the accused remains in custody awaiting the trial.

Let us assume that the first accused had good lawyers and was found guilty of committing a robbery and giving unintentional harm that caused death as a consequence. The second story is actually a real one. A 30 year old male was later found guilty of first degree murder. The problem is that in reality he killed an individual, who raped and killed his wife as he recognised the murderer’s face in the elevator one day after the rape/kill (the perpetrator was a new neighbour). He did not abandon the scene - the neighbours called the police once they saw him sitting in a pool of blood. Throughout the trial he suffered from depression, variety of mental disorders such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in terms of developing sense of helplessness.
From the ‘Bailing and Jailing’ article (Dhami, Ayton 2001) we know that the order, in which the evidence is presented in court can influence the decision made by judges. However, it seems reasonable to underline that the order of cases could also be significant. If two cases would be considered e.g. similar murder cases processed one after another, somehow we may refer to the first case (maybe subconsciously) in order to make a decision on the next one - especially if the judges do not possess professional knowledge or experience. For instance, women tend to think that they can get raped by a stranger, rather than by someone they actually know. But according to the statistics, in 73 – 75% of the cases, the perpetrator was a non-stranger (rainn.org; Buss 2006) and 38% of them are friends or acquaintances. If the jury or lay-magistrates were familiar with facts related to a certain case, maybe the judging process that they are involved in would be much more thorough.

This post may be a little bit abstract sometimes (hopefully not as trying to answer incomplete questions such as: Is it better for women to wear pink tops rather than high-heel shoes?), but will possibly give you a new perspective to think from.

References:

Buss, D. (2006) "The Murderer Next Door: Why the Mind Is Designed to Kill"

Dhami, M.K., Ayton, P. (2001). Bailing and jailing the fast and frugal way. Journal of Behavioural
Decision Making, 14, 141-168.

Keiser-Nielsen H. (1984) Zeitschrift für Rechtsmedizin; 93(2): 135-41.

Statistics for rape: http://www.rainn.org/get-information/statistics/sexual-assault-offenders