Bruce Hood - The Self Illusion

We often do not know the true incidence of an event but rather guess at this figure based on whatever evidence we can accumulate. This is where all sorts of distortions in reasoning start to appear. In weighing up the evidence, we easily overestimate or underestimate risks based on the external information. For example, people’s naive estimates related to dying in airplane crashes are inflated because we tend to judge the occurrence of such events as more common than they truly are. These are called ‘dread risks’ and they attract more salience because they are so uncommon. It’s not surprising considering the dramatic coverage such tragedies generate. We focus on them and imagine what it must be like to die in such a helpless way. We attach more weight to these thoughts than we should because they are novel and draw our attention.

This inaccurate risk assessment can be potentially dangerous as we may be tempted to change our behaviour patterns based on faulty reasoning. For example, an analysis of road traffic accidents for cars travelling to New York in the three months following 9/11 showed an increase in fatalities over expected numbers for that time of year in the build up to Christmas. 13In fact, the inflated number was greater than the total number of airline passengers killed on that fateful day. Individuals frightened of flying to New York overestimated their risk and took to their cars instead, which led to heavier than usual traffic and the subsequent increase in road accidents. The most likely reason that people felt it was safer to drive was based on another illusion of the self, the illusion of control. We believe that we are safer when we think we are in control of our fate, such as when driving our own car, but feel unhappy when we are being driven by others or, worse still, flown around in a metal cylinder that can fall out of the sky, irrespective of what we do.

Analysis Paralysis

Much of the time our risk analysis is based on the perception of choice – can we get out of a sticky situation? It is often assumed that choice is good – that decision-making makes us happier if we are allowed to exercise some self-control. Most of us feel safer when we drive. When faced with the prospect of not being able to help our selves out of a situation we become despondent, depressed and helpless. Information on this reaction to the lack of control is based on experiments during the 1960s in which animals were put through stressful situations. 14In one study two sets of dogs were given electric shocks. One set of dogs could terminate the pain by learning to press a lever. The other set of dogs were yoked to the first group, but did not have the option to press a lever and so received the same amount of shocks. To them, there was nothing they could do to stop the pain because they had no choice.

After these initial experiences, both sets of dogs were then placed in a shuttle box with two sides separated by a short barrier. Again electric shocks were applied to the floor of the cage, but this time both sets of animals could avoid the pain by leaping the barrier to the other safe side of the box. What they discovered was very disturbing. Dogs that had experienced control in the first study with the lever readily learned to avoid the pain, but dogs that had not been able to avoid the electric shocks in the first study failed to jump the barrier to avoid punishment. They simply lay down on the cage floor whimpering and were resigned to their torture. According to Martin Seligman, the psychologist who conducted this research, the animals had ‘learned helplessness’.

It is not easy to read about this sort of animal experimentation in a detached way. I am not a great animal lover, but I think I would have found such research difficult to conduct. Nevertheless, these studies on inducing learned helplessness have proved invaluable in understanding factors that contribute to human misery and depression. 15Depression is probably one of the most common debilitating mental disorders. We have all had some experience of feeling low, but clinical depression is a pervasive illness that prevents people from leading a normal life. It can vary in its intensity, with behavioural and psychological symptoms usually related to feelings of worthlessness and despondency. It is commonly associated with other problems, most notably stressful life events such as bereavement, unemployment and addiction, though there is much individual variation. Some of us are more predisposed to depression because it is a complex disorder that has genetic, biological, psychological and social components.

Not all depression is the same in its origins, but it is statistically more common among the poor and deprived in our society. 16One theory is that it is not so much that poverty is the root cause but rather the circumstances that having no wealth entails – the inability of individuals to do anything about their lives. Like the inescapable shock of the dogs, people learn helplessness, which leads to the negative fatalism that things can never get better. The obvious solution is to empower people with choices. Some would argue that this is what wealth really brings – the opportunity to make choices and not be shackled to a life you can’t escape. If nothing changes no matter what you do, you have the basics for despair. The need for control appears to be fairly important for both physical and mental health.

Simply believing that you have the power to change your life makes it more bearable. 17This is one reason why Liz Murray’s “Homeless to Harvard” story offers such hope. We also saw this with free will when we learned that people develop rituals and routines because these behaviours give the illusion of control when in fact there is none. Giving people choices, or at least the perception of control, empowers them to tolerate more adversity. For example, people will tolerate more pain if they think they can turn it off at any moment even when they have no control over the stimulus. Perceived control attenuates the pain centres of the brain. 18We even enjoy our meal more if is there is choice on the menu. 19These sorts of findings support a generally held view that choice is good, and the more choices you have, the better. It’s a principle that modern societies exhibit through conspicuous consumerism. However, this is only true up to a point. Sometimes you can have too much choice that can overwhelm the self.

Once again, Aesop knew this in his fable of the fox and the cat. Faced with the impending pack of savage hunting dogs bearing down on them, the fox and the cat had to escape. For the cat, this was a very easy decision to make as she bolted up a tree. However, the fox, with all his cunning know-how of the many ways he could escape, became paralysed by indecision and fell prey to the savage hounds. Faced with too many choices, the fox had analysis paralysis.

The same problem confronts us every day. The paradox of choice, as the psychologist Barry Schwartz calls it, is that the more choices we are given the less free we become because we procrastinate in trying to make the best decision. 20The whole modern world has gone choice crazy! For example, in his supermarket, Schwartz counted 285 different varieties of cookies, seventy-five iced teas, 230 soups, 175 salad dressings and forty different toothpastes. Any modern electrical appliance store is packed to the brim with so many different models with different features and functionality that we become swamped by indecision.

How many times have you gone to buy something from a large supplier only to leave empty-handed because you could not make a decision? We are so worried that we may make the wrong choice that we try to compare the different products along dimensions that we have not even considered relevant before we entered the store. Do I need it bluetooth enabled? What about the RAM? What about wi-fi? The majority of us who are not nerds find this overload of choice too much. Presented with so many options, we are unable to process the decisions efficiently. This leads to the sort of procrastination that makes us put off things that we really should do now.