How Community Affects Decision Making
Decatur Metro | May 11, 2009A recent article in NY Times Magazine’s “Green Issue” explored the question “Why Isn’t the Brain Green?”, searching out answers to why humans have such trouble focusing on long-term problems – in this instance climate change.
However, probably the most interesting element of the article has little to do with the environment at all. It’s all about how we make decisions.
In the article, psychologists assert that we analyze a problem in two ways: analytically and emotionally. Not too surprising, right?
But what’s really interesting is that they also discovered that they could affect the way people thought about an issue depending on how and when the issue was presented. Asked to make a decision individually before joining a group, participants used phrases like “I feel…” much more frequently, showing an initial emotional response to the issue. However, when the same question was presented in a group format first, respondents were much more likely to be analytical about these problems and used words like “we” and “us” demonstrating group identity.
So what? Well, this obviously could have implications across all spectrums. Not just regarding climate change, but any and all decision-making. So when cities, towns, corporations across the country, sit down to solve a potential problem, much of the possibility for solution is apparently determined by when the information is disseminated and how you promote teamwork (apparently giving teams identities – i.e. “you are the blue star team!” – works pretty well).
This gets me wondering not just about how this study and its results apply to our city’s own decision-making process, but also about any potential impact that a community blog might have vs. a newspaper. While I can see how it can be argued that learning about an issue in either a blog or a newspaper is learning and deciding on an issue individually, I think there’s an argument to be made that a blog with an active and productive feedback/discussion mechanism could provide an element of community cooperation that could never be promoted by a hard copy (or unmoderated) newspaper. (And no wonder AJC comments are all unbridled emotion.) I doubt its a strong enough incentive as sitting across the table from a bunch of fellow citizens, but hey, its better than nothing.
Interesting stuff. Sounds a bit like Otis White, doesn’t it?
h/t: Otis White
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Perhaps a smidge off topic…
Our water smells and taste funny. Also, I smelled it and tasted it in the city of Atlanta at a couple of different restaurants during the last couple of days. Did they just put an extra chlorine booster in the system? Or, did they grind up a pine tree in the water treatment plant?
Anyone else notice this? Fill a glass and give it a nice long sniff right away.
Well, this study should help the eco-terrorists get more glassy-eyed dupes to subscribe to the farce that is “global warming.” Oh, sorry…maybe I should be using the more generic “climate change,” which is the preferred vernacular, given the impossibility of proving it.
This is pretty old stuff actually. People respond in groups differently then they do individually. You can control behavior by making people feel special, ie part of the Blue Star brigade etc.
It does have it’s down sides of course like Jonestown and any other group think you can name so you should really consider what behavior you’re trying to modify.
As far the moderation angle goes I think we need more than one or two blogs to represent the community since each moderator will decide what to moderate based on their own biases.
Don’t post over there and I was just speaking in general.
As an aside I do a lot of high level interviews. The key to a good interview is to frame the question in such a way so that in can only be answered in a way that fits your purpose.
Control the framework, control the output.
Sounds like Otis White to me too.
I heard they were building an average of two coal fired power plants a month over in China. I’m not certain how reliable that fact is but it wouldn’t suprise me. How could there not be global warming? We are all basically living in a sealed cocoon. Keep pumping gases up there an it has to go somewhere. Sure the oceans and forests can absorb some of it but clearly there has to be a tipping point. It really doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see it.
But of course there will always be the naysayers. Particularly those conditioned by the neurosis of religion and believe its an inevitable part of the end of days or other mental illness BS that they tend to teach kids in the south.
For those that say that the eco terrorists are conjuring up some sort of hysteria around global warming, first look to organizations like ExxonMobil that are spending millions in mind spin campaigns to deny it to ensure that the profit keeps flowing.
If you have kids…good luck to them.
Rick, once again, a single Google search casts some doubts on your claims. I found this about Exxon:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/09/AR2007020902081.html
Certainly not the “mind spin” campaign you seem to assume Exxon is engaged in, is it?
As for “there will always be the naysayers,” have you ever read an IPCC Report? There is a huge amount of uncertainty about how much warmer the Earth will get and what the impacts of it might be. This isn’t in the same league as the laws of physics, you know. These scientists are relying substantially on climate predictions generated by computer models that are not indepently tested and may or may not be reliable. No one really knows for sure. To be skeptical of dire global warming predictions is not nearly the same thing as denying the laws of gravity or even the theory of evolution. To say that this sketicism is the product of the “nuerosis of religion” is not only insulting, but is the very sort of obviously anti-intellectual nonsense you pretend to abhor.
Honestly, I’m not sold on global warming either, probably because the zealotry in the movement scares me off. And though if pressed I’d come down as being better-safe-than-sorry, I’m more concerned with the more tactile depletion of natural resources.
I agree with you. I wish we had a conservation movement that was much more divorced from GW — one that advocated using less resources because it makes so much sense from any perspective. And while it’s no secret that I am a fiscal conservative who pretty much hates taxes, I do favor a big fat gas tax to heavily incentivizes us to drive far more efficient cars and live closer to work. Last year’s proclamations about “peak oil” turned out to be wrong, which is kind of too bad.
Dem and Decatur Metro, both of you made excellent comments that I agree with 100%. Like you, DM, I am gravely concerned about the depletion of our natural resources. I believe that is a much more provable event and our efforts should be steered toward protecting those resources and taking full advantage of renewable ones. Additionally, doing so will benefit GW/CC, assuming (and I’m not) that it exists and human activity is contributing to it.
Dem, divorcing the conservation movement from the GW/CC argument is the right way to go. While I love the idea of hybrid cars, every time I see a Prius, I can’t help myself from wondering if they are truly trying to conserve resources or just wanting to be in the “in” crowd.
Rick, I am not religious; just about the furthest thing from it. And I am from south Florida, where most of the people are transplanted northerners, so I’m not sure it really counts as “the south.” But you offensively dismiss a large number of wonderful and intelligent people who are religious and/or from the south. Arguments about GW/CC should not be based on religion or location; they should be about science, and the ability to prove that 1) it is really happening and 2) human activity is causing it. I’m not sure how old you are, but I have enough years behind me to remember when people were obsessed about the approaching ice age.
I just can’t bring myself to express an opinion on climate change – perhaps it’s my green brain or just a short attention span or perhaps the unnerving sense that I am not qualified.
On the topic of communal decision making or perspectives versus individual ones, the classic problem-solving scenario is the team exercise where you are marooned on the moon. Used in business education and other team-building areas, the “game” requires that individual members of the team select the items from the marooned mooncraft’s inventory to take on a survival trek to a moonbase or rescue point. After individuals have made their selections, the team member’s each bring their list of preferred items prioritized and reach a consensus on a prioritized group list. Invariably, the group list is better aligned with NASA experts survival recommendations than any individual list.
The reason I bring this exercise up is that I believe the best civic or community decisions result from a healthy combination of individual learning/study of a problem or question and collaborative debate or consensus-seeking. I guess my point is that blogging does create a place for both and is a very healthy environment for civic discourse to peculate.
As for moderation, I think it is essential to have on blogs but also equally essential that it be barely noticeable and to the degree possible, enforced through automated mechanisms such as “karma” or other rating systems. If we can simply keep name calling and profanity off the table, the discussions tend to be very productive.
Interesting viewpoint on moderation Kim…keeping it as barely noticeable as possible. I think there are positives and negatives to such a scenario.
If you don’t show the system in action and provide continual justification, I think people would become suspicious when something just disappeared and wonder why that had happened. This could eventually lead to stifled conversation, because you become “the man behind the curtain.” Being completely open and upfront about it provides full disclosure and examples/reminders of what type of actions aren’t tolerated. Also, if you keep it quiet, no one really has the opportunity to challenge your moderation actions…and discussion, along with transparency, is key to a good discussion experience.
And unfortunately, name calling and profanity isn’t the only way to insult others personally. So a lot of automated mechanisms out there miss stuff. As for swearing, I learned long ago during the spam attack of July 08, which involved endless repetition of the word “f*ck”, that the worst profanity goes immediately to moderation.
I think you missed the point.
No, I got the point (which was actually quite interesting). I was just taking a small part of the article in a new and politically charged direction.
Are you referring to my “bias” against insulting comments?
And are you also being moderated over on InDecatur?
Rick, are you capable of making your points without insulting and stereotyping “the South?”