[Vision2020] Disbelief in War Casualties

[Chasuk]

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&call_pageid=971358637177&c=Article&cid=1161814211186

Oct. 28, 2006. 01:00 AM
SHANKAR VEDANTAM
SPECIAL TO THE STAR

First a history lesson: more than three decades ago, two U.S.
psychologists conducted an experiment that was equal parts funny and
deadly serious.

They spun a roulette wheel and when it landed on the number 10, they
asked some whether the number of African countries was greater or less
than 10 per cent of the United Nations. Most people guessed that
estimate was too low. Maybe the right answer was 25 per cent, they
guessed.

The psychologists spun their roulette wheel a second time and when it
landed on the number 65, they asked a second group whether African
countries made up 65 per cent of the United Nations. That figure was
too high, everyone agreed. Maybe the correct answer was 45 per cent.

The difference in the estimates of the two groups was tied to the
original number they were given. It made no difference that the number
was meaningless, that it came from a roulette wheel.

Psychologists Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman described the error as
caused by a phenomenon known as anchoring — when you don't know the
answer to something, whatever starting point you have plays a powerful
role in determining what you think is the right answer.

Flash forward 32 years. A Johns Hopkins study published in a respected
peer-reviewed journal finds the number of Iraqis killed as a
consequence of the 2003 invasion to be about 650,000.

Critics immediately get up in arms; U.S. President George W. Bush
declares the result "not credible."

Although the debate over the study has been largely driven by the
political implications of the number of Iraqi casualties,
psychologists say the fact that many Americans find the new number
hard to digest is a perfect example of anchoring.

Previous estimates had put the number of Iraqi casualties at 30,000 to
50,000. Once that number was anchored in people's minds, it was a
foregone conclusion that most people would find it very difficult to
accept a much larger number.

"It could be malicious and deliberate or innocent and just wrong, but
the fact that the administration had set an anchor is what makes the
new number seem implausible," says Max Bazerman, who studies human
decision-making at Harvard Business School.

It is important to remember that the psychological phenomenon does not
tell you what the correct number of casualties in Iraq really is. But
it does say that even if the 650,000 number is accurate, we are likely
not to believe it.

Like many other aspects of human behaviour, psychologists say
anchoring is just one way the brain makes sense of the world.

We assume the information we are given is at least somewhat accurate
and, therefore, use that as an anchor around which to evaluate new
information or make informed guesses.

Like other subtle biases, anchors influence people at an unconscious
level. Neither group in the roulette-wheel experiment realized it had
been subtly manipulated.

Wesleyan University psychologist Scott Plous says politicians and
others who seek to influence people "will generally be most successful
by staking out extreme initial positions."

Although anchoring is often innocuous, it can sometimes come at a
cost. Psychologist Nicholas Epley at the University of Chicago says
people who move from a city with expensive housing to one with cheaper
housing are likely to overpay for housing because their minds are
still anchored in the more expensive market.

What's the only way to avoid the anchoring bias?

Know the right answer.

-- 
"Intolerance betrays want of faith in one's cause." -- Mahatma Gandhi