This is the third in my series of sketchbook videos exploring the theme of Critical Thinking and Tribalism.
In this video I discuss the relationship between tribal psychology and trust. What factors determine who we trust to provide reliable information about issues like climate change, gun control, and other issues of the day?
More specifically, this episode is a deep dive into the psychology of risk perception. I look at two important forms of “motivated reasoning”, AFFECT BIAS and CULTURAL COGNITION, discuss how these influence how we make judgments about the risks and benefits of various social policies.
This video makes heavy use of ongoing research spearheaded by Dan Kahan and his colleagues out of the Cultural Cognition Project. See the links below.
Affect Bias (or, the Affect Heuristic)
- Chapter 13 of Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow, “Availability, Emotion, and Risk”, is a good introduction to cognitive biases and heuristics relating to risk perception, including affect bias. A very interesting discussion of differing views (Paul Slovic vs Cass Sunstein) on whether social policy should follow the public’s perceptions of risk (with all their attending biases), or whether policy experts should rely on more “objective” risk assessment methods.
- The Affect Heuristic (wikipedia article)
- “The Affect Heuristic” (academic review article by Paul Slovic et al)
- “Affect Bias” (entry in Robert Todd Carroll’s Skeptic’s Dictionary, summarizing ways that affect bias makes us susceptible to various forms of manipulation and distorted thinking.
- Attribute Substitution (wikipedia article — see my discussion of “substitution” as a cognitive effort reduction strategy in the video)
Cultural Cognition
- Cultural Cognition Project (culturalcognition.net)
- The Cultural Cognition Project is a group of scholars interested in studying how cultural values shape public risk perceptions and related policy beliefs. Dan Kahan, Professor of Law and Psychology at Yale, is the senior researcher behind this initiative.
- Dan Kahan’s Blog on the Cultural Cognition site
- A good review article by Kahan: “Misconceptions, Misinformation, and the Logic of Identity-Protective Cognition“
- “The Tragedy of the Risk-Perception Commons: Culture Conflict, Rationality Conflict, and Climate Change” (Kahan et al – working paper)
- Cultural Theory of Risk (wikipedia article)
- The Science of Science Communication
- Science Literacy and Political Polarization
Cognitive Dissonance
- Cognitive Dissonance (wikipedia entry)
- Andy Luttrell’s helpful video introduction to cognitive dissonance:
Other Researchers on Culture and Cognition
- Jay Van Bavel (Social Perception and Evaluation Lab)
- Jay’s TEDx talk, “The Dangers of the Partisan Brain”
- Joseph Henrich (Culture, Cognition and Coevolution Lab)
- “The Secret of Our Success” (promo video for Henrich’s book)