A 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