Three Psychological Problems Plaguing my News Feed This Elections

I was generally quite apathetic in the 2011 General Elections, but this time round I've been reading and watching some videos and articles with interest. I'm rather annoyed though by how several flawed styles of thinking keep resurfacing on my Facebook news feed.

I'm not here to debate issues - I'm neither sufficiently eloquent nor knowledgeable. I've just noticed three psychological errors that people commit this GE, and I'm here to call them out.


1) Confirmation Bias

Confirmation bias refers to the tendency to seek out information that supports our personal beliefs, and ignore / overlook / discredit information that opposes our beliefs. This is RAMPANT all over my newsfeed. If I was to draw a comic that illustrated them, it would be someone plugging their fingers into their ears and they're going 'ngah ngah ngah ngah'.

I am right you are wrong no information you present will change my views ngah ngah ngah ngah.

To cite an example, a common criticism I've seen of the government is that 'They don't listen to the people'.

This post is flawed for other reasons, but let's just focus on the confirmation bias part.

But how true is that? Do the government just sit in their ivory towers and ignore the common populace? Let's just examine one case study.

How many of you have heard of the Committee to Strengthen National Service (CSNS)? If you haven't, you can head over here to check it out.

To give you a flavor of what it is, it is a THREE-year long project (still ongoing) by the Ministry of Defence to improve the hotly debated and controversial issue of National Service (NS).
It consisted of a year long consultation period, in which there were focus groups, surveys, town hall sessions, website/Facebook interactions, dialogues within NS units, and more, all to gather feedback about NS from the population. What followed next is they took all these feedback, deliberated them, and put forth 30 recommendations that would improve many facets of NS, such as to improve identity & purpose, support & recognition, and administration & communication.

If this is not public consultation, or 'listening to the people', I don't know what is. This is just one ministry - I know for a fact that other ministries have been having regular public consultations (especially the social ones).

So the bottom line is, the government IS listening. Whether they get the solutions right is a different matter altogether, but you CAN'T say that they are not listening. Insisting that they don't listen is just holding fast to your confirmation bias and being an irrational human being.

Take your fingers out of your ears. Explore the alternatives. Are your beliefs really true?


2) Being Emotional Creatures

Jonathan Haidt, a renowned moral psychologist, once said (paraphrasing his argument): "People tend to rely on their emotions (or as he calls it, 'moral intuitions') rather than conscious reasoning to make moral judgments". You can read more about this in his article, 'The Emotional Dog and its Rational Tail'.

Other than trying to sound smart by quoting a famous person, the point of quoting this is to say that apart from moral judgments, this rule seems to apply to politics too. Many people are letting their emotions rule them and lead them to weak conclusions. If they could be dispassionate for a second, they may realise that their conclusion/arguments aren't that great.

The above Facebook post I linked would be a great example in itself. The poster saw that it was pitiful and sad that the elderly had to work so hard, and concluded that the government was at fault and wasn't listening.
Another example would be the populist policies that some of my FB friends are supporting. Populism is basically pushing for policies that appeals to the interests of the general population (without considering the general feasibility of the policy).

E.g. A particular party promising $500 every month to both elderly and youths. Say what?

This works because it pushes emotional buttons in people, while offering simplistic solutions. Some examples:

• Should the elderly be suffering, working 10 hours a day, collecting cardboard? NO! We pledge to implement minimum wage, and give them $300 a month in grants too! (Watch this video by DPM / Finance Minister Tharman to understand why this doesn't work)
• Are you happy that the foreigners are taking our jobs and overcrowding our trains? NO! We should stop taking in foreigners! [throwback to confirmation bias - ignoring the fact that the govt has indeed tightened up on foreign labour intake]

The bottom line is this - there are no simple solutions to some of our biggest problems. If there were, the thousands of civil servants working on them would have thought of them. Every solution is a complex, multifaceted one, that will impact different groups of people in different ways. Let's not let our emotions rule us, and draw hasty conclusions, such as supporting simplistic solutions.

[ASIDE: I used to work in a policy department in a Ministry, so let me explain the general process of how a small policy change / proposal gets implemented/approved. A minion (me) would first draft an elaborate paper that considers the background, impetus for change, presents recommendations and why, all well-researched from many sources. This draft is then critiqued (i.e. heavily edited or discussed and changed) by the minion's boss. That next piece is then critiqued by the boss's boss, in preparation to present it at a forum (basically a meeting of leaders). That piece is then discussed at that forum, and either approved or endorsed to proceed to the next forum, depending on how big the issue is. It is not uncommon for a policy paper to go through 2-3 fora before it is approved. And I'm leaving out many details/steps such as consultations with other departments / agencies, public consultation, internal discussions, etc.

TLDR: There are many fora through which a policy paper has to pass through before it can be approved, to canvas a wide range of perspectives and views before a policy is passed.

So if you think that the government doesn't consider each policy carefully, you are horribly mistaken. End of ASIDE.]

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3. An empty point.

I don't really have a third point, but people like things to come in threes, so I started off that way.

Here's a kitten to distract you from the abrupt ending of this post.

Click me to see cute cats and dogs squeezing into random things!