newsflash: more knowledge = better decisions

one of the american psychological association (APA)’s monthly publications, monitor on psychology, reports this month on a recent – and somehow surprising – research finding from carnegie mellon university:

"The research shows that… people are capable of understanding risks and making decisions in their best interest"

this result is in the context of subjects’ assessment of sexual, vaccination, and terrorist threat risks, and flies in the face of current psychology dogma and other recent research, but only kind of. the one caveat to their finding is that people can only make these "rational" decisions when given full and unbiased information. another recent study shows that when people receive written information they tend to make more cautious decisions. however, when given only partial information, people tend to realize they’re trying to be persuaded and disregard all information from that source altogether.
charts, graphs, and anecdotal stories all are effective ways of communicating decision-making information. research points to the importance of anecdotes particularly, likely because of their emotional appeal. and when authorities don’t know the risk (e.g., the safety of flying on an airline directly after 9/11), they should admit it:

…government spokespeople should admit that they simply do not know what the risk is…. Research shows that the public is unlikely to panic, unless they lose faith in their own authorities….

this is heartening information i hope the government heeds: instead of feeding us propagandistic public service announcements, mandatory programs, etc., opting for a more unbiased approach yields better results. what a disaster that would be for prohibition.

Labels: decision making