Credibility and Cognitive Biases
Significant news on the PanFlu and H5N1 front has been rather slow, mostly just more of the same. More plans coming out, more plans to plan, more chickens and ducks dying, more statements of "we've made progress but there's much left to do", and Indonesia's Health Minister Supari is still being most frustratingly obstinate.
Most of the news of note has been about everything but PanFlu or H5N1. Floods, soaring fuel costs, scarcity of food, politics, the US Supreme Court's ruling on the Second Amendment, the findings coming in from the Mars lander Phoenix, an ice-free Arctic this summer. On and on.
The world is a busy, busy place with many important things, some crucially so, intruding upon our limited time and attention spans.
My own life has once again taken an unexpected turn. This past Monday I assumed the Accounting Manager's position as it again became vacant. It has taken a bit of "extra attention" this week as the department undergoes some rather significant reorganization. Since we do not have to hunt a replacement, nor suffer as we train them, this transition, the third this year, is going quite smooth and already showing very positive results – even if I say so myself.
Just as I seemed to be unable to escape taking on a role that I did not want, nor seek, I have been unable to escape a recurring theme of late:
Credibility.
The credibility of our public officials. How the public perceives the credibility of those who advocate on the PanFlu issue. The credibility of the message itself. Who has credibility to parlay into results. Who lacks credibility. Who risks their credibility by speaking up in ways counter to the officially sanctioned public message.
What struck me very recently – no, what knocked me square in the solar plexus, was the realization that those who professed concern for credibility didn't express the same, or for that matter – any – concern for truth or intellectual rigor.
When I made the choice to become actively involved in the pandemic issue I chose to view the public as capable of accepting that a range of potentials existed. Ambiguity, a dearth of hard facts, and evolving knowledge notwithstanding, I believed, and still do, that what we do know deserves to be openly discussed and dissected, and doubly so for what we don't know.
[…]In some cases, people can exert direct personal control over the risks they face (e.g., through diet or driving habits). In other cases, they can only act indirectly, by influencing social processes (e.g., the allocation of law enforcement funds, the enactment of environmental legislation, the siting of hazard facilities). In all cases, they need a diverse set of cognitive, social, and emotional skills in order to understand the information that they receive, interpret its relevance for their lives and communities, and articulate their views to others. They can acquire those skills through formal education, self-study, and personal experience. However, as diligent as they might be, individuals are helpless without trustworthy, comprehensible information about specific risks.
[…]Effective risk communications require authoritative and trustworthy sources. If communicators are perceived as having a vested interest, then recipients may not know what to believe. They may accept the message at face value or reinterpret it in ways that attempt to undo perceived biases. As a result, the impact of communications will be blurred, and the communication process further complicated. Not knowing whom or what to believe can make risk decisions seem intractable (Fischhoff, 1992). Such confusion and suspicion can erode relations between experts and the public, as well as open the door to less credible sources. Such failures of communication can be deliberate, as when communicators attempt to manipulate the public or simply fail to take their duty to inform seriously. However, they can also be inadvertent, as when communicators fail to realize the complexity of their task or the opportunities for failure.
[all emphasis added]
Risk Communication: A Mental Models Approach Morgan, Fischhoff, Bostrom and Atman
We all understand that credibility is crucial, whether we are the recipients or the deliverers of an important (potentially life effecting message), but how do we measure it? Do we trust those whose job it is to inform us? Do we trust those with letters trailing their names? Do we trust what a famous celebrity tells us? Do we trust a snarky ex-cop-cum-accountant?
I've chosen whom I view as credible and knowledgeable, and yet even with the information they provide I always – always—run it through my own logic filters. Most times that serves me quite well. On occasion, however, my logic filters don't perform as well as I would like or assume, since like other human beings I have cognitive biases. And, yes, the last I checked I really was a human being.
As I have journeyed I have recently had to come to grips with the cognitive biases I am prone to, even if only in hindsight. Since I have become hyper-aware of how my own shape and inform me, I have also become watchful for them in others.
Being alert to the things that underpin words, I have become aware of a disturbing tendency:
When people begin to spout off about their credibility or the perceived credibility of the PanFlu threat that consistently translates: "I've watered the message down so I'm not judged a scaremonger, my credibility is more important than the truth. Besides, the public is too stupid to effectively handle it so why should I risk my own credibility?"
I don't view the public as stupid, incapable of understanding the myriad facets of all a severe influenza pandemic would likely entail. I have believed most have made conscious choices on the threat of a potential near future severe influenza pandemic. Just as I have made conscious choices on the issue; choices of what and who to believe, what and who to dismiss. But, ya'll out there have cognitive biases as well, so maybe the choices weren't so "conscious" after all, or at least to the degree that I generally go on about (latest here).
This communication thing is far more complicated than I ever knew and I'm learning fascinating things as I feverishly try to address my own naive communication skill-sets. As I've come to understand it I am a "core-dump" person when it comes to information assimilation. That means I want "The facts, all the facts, and nothing but the facts". Which, not surprisingly, shows up in what I have posted over the course of this blog's couple of years of existence.
And that brings me back to credibility: Given my "core-dump" mentality I don't view a "fact" as having credibility – it's a fact after all. And when it's not a "fact", that means it's an assumption, presumption, hypothesis, supposition, extrapolation, or out-and-out guess. Of course, I am assuming the information is promulgated in good faith thus no need to account for lies, falsehoods, half-truths, and anything deliberately misleading.
It's unfortunate that much about what a future influenza pandemic has in store for us resides in the "other than fact" column of the ledger. As a result, the weight we give "other than facts" is highly informed by our perceptions of the credibility of the person making the claims. That is not a bad thing, in fact, that is a very useful and serviceable "logic filter" in and of itself.
I am quite comfortable in "the land of presumption" given my years in law enforcement. In court proceedings things are often presumed factual until proved not: a rebuttable presumption. The most well known example is a defendant's presumption of innocence until proved guilty.
Science has something of an equivalent:
[…] Scientific realists acknowledge (in fact they insist) that scientific knowledge is always provisional, always subject to revision if better evidence is discovered, and most of them have no quarrel with the thought that social factors and extraneous agendas can shape priorities, lines of enquiry, funding, education, and the like.
Why Truth Matters (Benson, Stangroom 2006)
I do not find fact and presumption (or hypothesis, logical assumption, inference) untenable dichotomies, even with a "core-dump" mentality, but rather necessary correlates in our search for understanding. Perhaps this also explains why I have no "credibility issues" when I post and discuss what we do know versus what we think we know. To me "being wrong and willing to be proven so" is a wonderful part of the process – it protects us – allowing us (hopefully) to get past the ego to continually search for more perfect understanding, and on those rare occasions to go from postulate to indisputable fact.
But what happens when the person informing us of something so heavily burdened with "other than facts" is also quite consciously guarding their credibility?
We get silence.
Many can't admit, even to themselves, that the watered down message, or outright silence, is self-serving. No, instead, they blame the audience: The public is too stupid to understand, much less channel that understanding into anything other than blind panic.
I'm not certain about anyone else but I tend to be insulted when someone thinks I'm stupid. Even if it's only an ego-protective self-serving cognitive bias on their part.
