Fischhoff’s article was about how
humans are able to make decisions especially looking at decisions that involve
great risk. As we have been
talking about in class virtually every decision we make and everything that we
do involves some sort of risk. He is looking at how we actually make these
choices and how we will respond. He says that in order to know how humans will
react we need to understand human behaviors; he brings up the point of
behaviorally unrealistic plans. In order to understand these behaviors we
almost need to assume that humans have three different types of literacy. These
three types are numeracy, language and scientific literacy. Each type allows an
individual to understand a different aspect of a risk; if one is without one of
these they may have a limited understanding of the risk. If we could put value
to the different types of literacy which one do you believe would be most
important? Do you think that you could make decisions about risk aspects
without these?
Fischhoff also ties in how emotions
can affect ones ability to react to risk. For some extreme emotions can either
propel people into action of restrict them. This made me think about war and
how if you allow yourself to think through the deaths of innocent citizens and
the massive destruction is war still worth it? Do these innocent citizens have
value to your life? Is it ethical to look over their value of life? Feldman’s
article looks at the value of ones life and different ways of trying to measure
and measure the value of ones life. He started with looking at how much
individuals would pay to avoid the risk of harm. Then he added in how ones fear
of death played into how much they would pay to avoid harm. These equations and
variables weren’t the clearest for me; I would be lacking numeracy literacy if I
was asked to calculate risk. I thought it was interesting how they were both
taking into account emotions and the large affect that it has on making decisions.
Both of these articles also address the role that these emotions play into
events that we have never experienced. For example we make assumptions and tie
certain emotions to death. When no one who has personally experienced death can
talk about his or her experience. What also came to mind when I was thinking
about this was our discussion of talking about presidents deciding about war. How
in today’s times our presidents haven’t experienced war but are making decisions
on them. What are ways that your emotions tie into your decision-making
processes? Do you think in today’s society that we over look the importance of emotions?
How do we take into account how easily emotions can be controlled?
I enjoyed your analysis of the articles and the questions you drew from them, and I'd like to try to answer your question concerning Fischhoff's article "Do you think that you could make decisions about risk aspects without these (the three types of literacy)?" My answer is "Yes, I can definitely make decisions concerning risks without all three types of literacy." There are certain situations that require all three, but those are few and far between. I would claim to be "language literate," and open to learning numerical and scientific literacy, but I don't expect to ascertain expertise in either of those anytime soon. This doesn't stop me from making informed decisions though, because, as Fischhoff suggests, I can turn to experts (hopefully un-biased ones) to substitute for that kind of literacy. Fischhoff says "We need to define our domain of expertise and be willing to coordinate with other experts," and I agree. It would be ideal if everyone could be linguistically, numerically, and scientifically literate, but that would take much more schooling than is currently practical for everyone that participates in decision-making in a democracy. Overall, I think it's important to emphasize the importance of being able to turn to experts who "provide facts, and not spin" in order to make decisions.
ReplyDeleteI quite like Fischhoff's division of literacy into three categories and found the buying time model in Feldman much more intuitive than the utility of death model. That being said, having equal prowess in each literacy category would be ideal. I think that any decision made without having an adequate literacy in numerical, scientific, and verbal could be devastating to any powerful force; be it nations or companies.
ReplyDeleteBut there is a slippery slope with modeling situations and people with mathematics. No matter how hard you try to model a person to the tee you will always leave out a small nuance (emotions?) that changes the person. A favorite saying of mine is people are dumb, a person is intelligent. Modeling a group of people is different from modeling a single person. But fundamentally speaking, math be able to relate the to completely. To do so would require some of the most sophisticated and complex equations seen (based on the complexity of social behavior). Any lacking of literacy would lend an analysis of the data and equations either useless or dangerous. If a misinterpretation based on illiteracy would happen, say in the hands of the president, then they would have the potential to do more harm then good.
I think a better question would be how much literacy should the general public know? Or how close can mathematics make watered down approximations to help guide peoples innate ability for heuristics?
Abbie, I really enjoyed how you depicted Fischhoff's articles. My favorite part you wrote about was the ending and how people try to "relate" using their emotions. What also comes to mind is when people say "I know how you feel" because they think their situation is exactly like yours. I just have one argument to your ending questions. Do you really think emotions are that easy to control?
ReplyDeletePersonally, I think in some situations, it is very easy to step back and control your emotions. However, I don't think emotions are as easy to control as some people may think they are. Have you ever thought of something that just made you cry? Have you listened to a song and just brought back that joy? In a sense, you are controlling that emotion because you can always bring it back up by either thinking about it or listening to a song. However, you aren't really controlling it! If you listen to that song that makes you sad, can you force yourself to be happy instead while listening to it? Might be quite hard since your emotions are so tied into it already. In a way, I guess I'm also answering your second to last question. YES, I do think that in today's society, people tend to overlook emotions. Just because many people will do things even though they know they are emotionally fueled. They won't stop to think about what they are deciding and whether or not it is truly the right decision.
For the longest time, whenever I stumbled upon the question of “what’s the value of human life” (mostly in television or books), I’d find an answer saying that there is no value to human life. As such, I was pretty surprised (after reading the Feldman article) that such a value can be placed. Though after thinking about it, I suppose that from a mathematical and statistical point of view, one could probably place a value on human life. After all, some people do get life insurance which (to me at least) is a sign that people out there do think that other people have a finite value.
ReplyDeleteDon’t worry, I too had trouble interpreting the equations used to evaluate risk (needless to say that my math skills were never the best), but I did find it amazing that the higher the risk was, people tended to pay off more money in order to help prevent their death. When first reading this, I thought that this notion was silly as all people die no matter how much money they dish out to protect themselves, but I suppose that all people tend to cling to hope.