Hello everyone recently I participated in a regional science fair where I discussed implicit bias on a neurological level. I ended up placing second in the health and sciences category. I thought I should show you all.
The Neuro-survival Tactic… am I biased?
INTRODUCTION
My project is on how humans navigate the world using heuristics and how these things that are meant to protect us can also lead to bias and encourage systemic discrimination. In this project I will go over what heuristics are, the different types of heuristics and the positives and negatives.
WHAT ARE HEURISTICS
A heuristic is a mental short cut or as some may call it a rule of thumb that we humans use to navigate our world. We humans are constantly having to make decisions every day. It’s overwhelming and can end up being tasking. So in order to save time we make broad approximations of these things. Our brain makes a mental shortcut or heuristic in order for us to make our decisions more quickly and efficiently and to help us spend less time analyzing every situation. For example you’re walking to your house in the night and the quickest way to your house is through a dark alleyway using heuristic would be opting to find away from the alleyway. Your brain might be triggered to remember the scary movies you watched where someone was murdered in a dark alleyway so it associates it with danger. It doesn’t stop to think about the analytics or crime rates of the neighborhood; it makes a mental shortcut.
SYSTEM 1 and SYSTEM 2 thinking
System 1 and system 2 thinking describes the two types of cognitive processes that were first introduced by Daniel Kahneman in his book Thinking, Fast and Slow. System 1 thinking is described as fast and automatic with little room for examining. This mode of thinking allows us to make rapidly quick decisions based on patterns and experiences. System 2 thinking is quite the opposite, it’s slow and calculated, this kind of thinking is used for complex problem solving where careful and thorough plans are a necessity. The decision lab
THE 3 MAIN TYPES OF HEURISTICS
Representative heuristics
A representative heuristic is a mental shortcut people use to estimate the probability of an event or the category of an object based on how much it resembles a typical “prototype” or stereotype. In short, it’s judging a book by its cover. This heuristic allows for quick thinking but can lead to bias and errors. For example: You meet a shy man with glasses who’s always reading naturally. You’d think he’d be a librarian but he’s actually a gym teacher. You used your idea of what a librarian is supposed to look like to make an assumption about the man.
Affect Heuristics
An affect heuristic is a heuristic influenced by the individual’s current emotions. This heuristic was popularized by psychologists such as Paul Slovic, this concept suggests that feelings determine the intensity of our choices. For example: If someone had a terrifying experience with roller coasters they will perceive it as dangerous despite what statistics might say.
Availability Heuristics
An availability heuristic is where people judge the frequency of an event based on how easily examples come to mind. For example: 40% of people think that planes are dangerous because of the amount of plane crashes televised in the news but the reality is that the risk of dying in a plane crash is 1 in 11 million.
WHAT PARTS OF THE BRAIN TRIGGERS HEURISTICS
Heuristics are triggered by different complex regions of the brain but the primary two that are responsible for it are the prefrontal cortex and the limbic system. The prefrontal cortex manages choice bias evaluating heuristics and incorporating those shortcuts into behavioral patterns. The limbic system is key to “System 1” (automatic, emotional) thinking. It’s involved in making decisions using the effect heuristic. The limbic system is a complex set of brain structures located beneath the cerebrum that regulates emotions, memory, motivation, and survival behaviors.
THE NEGATIVES
In the 1970’s two men named Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky analyzed the arising biases as a result of using heuristics. Heuristics can lead to irrational thinking and impulsive decision making. These responses don’t come from nowhere, they are developed as you make decisions and witness outcomes your brain stores this information and uses as reference when dealing with a similar situation later. When you encounter those situations again your brain has created an opinion, response and prediction in order to deal with the situation while also cutting the time in order to process it. The media also plays an important role in building our heuristics. The availability heuristic assesses the frequency of an event based on its memorability. For example 38%-40% of people have concerns on the safety of air travel and have said car travel feels much safer. However statistically 1 in 93 to 1 in 107 are the statistics of lifetime odds of death for car travel while planes are 1 in 11,000,000 (US data). You’d assume the majority of people would be more weary of car travel but it’s because of the intense media coverage plane crashes receive it makes it much easier to recall so naturally most people assume air travel is far less safe.
We will continue in the June Issue – Kossy
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