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為什麽我們的大腦不是為民主而生的
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/why-our-brains-aren-t-built-for-democracy-1.2784220
我們的“蜥蜴腦”在決定我們如何投票方麵的作用
Nicola Luksic 和 Tom Howell · CBC 新聞 · 發布時間：2014 年 10 月 1 日 8:09 PM EDT | 最後更新時間：2014 年 10 月 2 日
不列顛哥倫比亞大學 (UBC) 的一項頗具爭議性的新論文表明，我們的大腦可能並不適合我們所創建的政治體係。 事實上，對於民主來說，我們可能太愚蠢了。 （拉塞爾·切恩/路透社）
雖然選舉市長或總理往往是一個令人頭疼的過程，但不列顛哥倫比亞大學的一篇具有爭議性的新論文表明，我們的大腦可能並不適合我們所創建的政治體係。
事實上，對於民主來說，我們可能太愚蠢了。
不列顛哥倫比亞大學政治學博士生戴維·莫斯克羅普 (David Moscrop) 指出，現代民主建立在公民理性和自主的理念之上。
但他表示，各個政治派別的選民更有可能憑本能而不是理性投票。
“我們的動力來自所謂的‘蜥蜴大腦’，”莫斯克羅普說。
他說，不鼓勵投票公眾通過政治平台做出明智的決定。
“這與消息傳遞和名字熟悉程度有關。 它反映了我們自己容易被操縱的脆弱性——這就是攻擊性廣告和原聲摘要有效的原因。”
精神限製
是媒體還是我們的“蜥蜴腦”對我們的投票影響更大？ （布利特·馬克斯/美聯社）
“蜥蜴腦”是我們大腦中5億至1.5億年前發展起來的區域的總稱，主要負責本能、情感和記錄記憶，以及影響甚至指導我們的本能感覺。 決定。
另一方麵，新皮質是我們大腦中負責推理、語言、想象力、抽象思維和意識的區域。 科學家表示，新皮質僅存在了兩三百萬年。
在了解人腦的工作原理時，值得記住的是，我們活躍的大腦中隻有一小部分是有意識的。
雖然無法量化，但科學家表示，我們的大腦活動大約 95% 是潛意識或無意識的。
杜克大學神經科學和心理學教授坦尼婭·查特蘭德 (Tanya Chartrand) 表示：“認為我們完全掌控一切的想法是錯誤的。”
“我們沒有足夠的心理能力以有意識的意識和意圖來處理環境中的所有事物，因此我們在任何特定時間都會關注環境中的一小部分。 但在後台，我們無意識地處理了很多很多的事情。 無意識的處理隨後會影響我們做出的決定。”
Chartrand 提到了 1996 年發表的一項著名研究，其中紐約大學的心理學家 John Bargh 和他的團隊給研究對象分配了修改句子的任務。
使用與老年人相關的單詞（例如“退休”和“佛羅裏達”）的受試者離開研究實驗室的速度比使用中性單詞的受試者走得更慢。
心理學家將這種效應稱為“啟動”，而這個實驗隻是證明我們對暗示敏感的眾多實驗之一。
政治偏好是預先形成的
神經科學家塔尼婭·查特蘭德 (Tanya Chartrand) 表示，許多實驗已經證明了我們對暗示的敏感性。 （比爾·班伯格，杜克大學）
查特蘭德說：“你可能會認為，對於高度參與的情況，比如決定投票給誰，我們應該創建利弊電子表格，並刻意考慮候選人平台的利弊。”
但事實是，我們大多數人都沒有。
莫斯克羅普表示，競選活動的前提是選民的政治偏好已經形成。
因此，一場運動實際上並不是讓公民參與嚴格的變革性思想交流，而是重申人們現有的意識形態偏見，並動員公民投票支持各自的陣營。
多倫多大學哲學教授約瑟夫·希思表示，如果民主的目標是進行嚴格的思想交流，為所有公民帶來更大的利益，那麽首先要做的事情之一就是淡化電視廣告在競選期間的作用。 。
“理性在於語言，以及我們在爭論中如何從 A 點轉向 B 點的能力。”Heath 說道。
哲學家約瑟夫·希思 (Joseph Heath) 表示，電視上的選舉廣告鼓勵的是本能反應，而不是理性。 （奧斯卡·希思）
“如果你試圖通過視覺刺激進行交流，它不會鼓勵對事物的理性欣賞，這會產生很多影響。 理性非常非常慢。 速度會促進本能反應。”
希思還認為取消下議院的攝像頭是個好主意。
“我們在加拿大組織提問期的方式很荒謬，”他說。 例如，他認為在質詢期之前向國會議員提出問題將促進合理的意見交流。
現在，他說，“這是一個棘手的時刻——問題不會提前提供。 目的是讓部長措手不及。 這降低了加拿大的政治話語。”
設計“用戶友好”的民主製度
希思在他的新書《啟蒙 2.0：恢複我們的政治、經濟和生活的理智》中主張重新思考我們對公民個人以及我們所處的民主結構的期望。
“我們傾向於認為人類理性是位於我們大腦深處的東西。 而新的心理學研究表明，理性是通過群體和特定環境中的人的合作來實現的，”希思說。
希思說，政治體係的構建應該考慮到我們的認知局限性。 他非常重視設計。 例如，兩歲的孩子就能學會如何操作 iPad，因為它的設計方式符合人類本能。
“我很樂意看到關於可以建立更好地適應我們運作方式的社會機構的討論，”他說。
正在 UBC 攻讀政治學博士學位的戴維·莫斯克羅普 (David Moscrop) 表示，如果我們承認自己的心理局限性，我們就可以設計一種考慮到我們認知缺陷的民主製度。 （德魯·高夫）
莫斯克羅普是“協商”民主理念的堅定支持者，為來自各個政治派別的公民提供資源和激勵，以便他們能夠聚集在一起討論政策並提出建議，利用結果來影響政客並教育其他公民。
莫斯克羅普希望，這種做法能夠比目前狹隘地關注投票箱的政黨政治遊戲更好地建立公民參與。
他認為，如果我們承認我們的心理局限性，我們就可以設計一種考慮到我們認知缺陷的民主製度。
“你改變了結構，事物的運作方式就會改變。 但目前，所有的激勵措施都是為了在基層做事。”
10 月 2 日星期四晚上 9:05 收聽 Ideas 紀錄片《Too Dumb for Democracy》 ET 在 CBC 廣播一號台播出。?
Why our brains aren't built for democracy
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/why-our-brains-aren-t-built-for-democracy-1.2784220
The role of our 'lizard brain' in determining how we vote
While electing a mayor or prime minister can often be a head-scratching process, a provocative new thesis from the University of British Columbia suggests our brains may not be cut out for the political system we’ve created.
We may, in fact, be too dumb for democracy.
David Moscrop, a Ph.D political science candidate at UBC, points out that modern democracy was built on the idea that citizens are rational and autonomous.
But he says voters across the political spectrum are more likely to vote with instinct than reason.
“We’re motivated by our so-called 'lizard brains,'” says Moscrop.
He says the voting public isn't encouraged to wade through political platforms to make informed decisions.
“It’s about messaging and name familiarity. And it reflects our own vulnerability to being manipulated -- which is why attack ads work and sound bites work.”
Mental limitations
Is it the media or our 'lizard brain' that has more impact in how we vote? (Bullit Marquez/Associated Press)
The “lizard brain” is a catch-all term for the areas of our brain that developed between 500 million and 150 million years ago and are primarily responsible for instinct, emotion and recording memories, as well as visceral feelings that influence or even direct our decisions.
The neocortex, on the other hand, is the area of our brain responsible for reason, language, imagination, abstract thought and consciousness. Scientists say the neocortex has only been around for two or three million years.
When it comes to understanding the workings of the human brain, it's worth remembering that only a small percentage of our active brain is conscious.
It is impossible to quantify, but scientists say roughly 95 per cent of our brain activity is subconscious or unconscious.
“It is flawed to think that we’re fully in control,” says Tanya Chartrand, professor of neuroscience and psychology at Duke University.
“We don’t have the mental capacity to process everything in our environment with conscious awareness and intent, so we pay attention to a small percentage of the environment at any given time. But in the background, we’re non-consciously processing much, much more. And non-conscious processing later influences the decisions we make.”
Chartrand points to a famous study published in 1996, in which psychologist John Bargh and his team at New York University assigned research subjects the task of reworking sentences.
The subjects working with words associated with the elderly – words such as "retirement" and "Florida" – left the research lab walking more slowly than their counterparts who were given neutral words.
Psychologists refer to this effect as "priming," and this experiment is just one of many that demonstrates our susceptibility to suggestion.
Political preferences are pre-formed
Many experiments have demonstrated our susceptibility to suggestion, according to neuroscientist Tanya Chartrand. (Bill Bamberger, Duke University)
“You would think that for high-involvement situations, like deciding on who to vote for, we should be creating spreadsheets of pros and cons and deliberately considering the pros and cons of candidates’ platforms,” says Chartrand.
But the truth is, most of us don’t.
Moscrop says that election campaigns are run on a presumption that voters’ political preferences are already formed.
A campaign, then, isn’t really about engaging citizens in a rigorous exchange of transformative ideas, but rather reaffirming people’s existing ideological biases and mobilizing citizens to vote for their respective camp.
If the goal of democracy is to engage in a rigorous exchange of ideas that results in a greater good for all citizens, one of the first things to do is downplay the role of television ads during election campaigns, says University of Toronto philosophy professor Joseph Heath.
“Reason resides in language and our ability to explicitly articulate how we get from point A to point B in an argument,” says Heath.
Philosopher Joseph Heath say election ads on TV encourage gut reactions, rather than reason. (Oscar Heath)
“If you’re trying to communicate through visual stimulation, it won’t encourage a rational appreciation of things, and that has a bunch of implications. Reason is very, very slow. Speed encourages gut reactions.”
Heath also thinks it would be a good idea to get rid of cameras in the House of Commons.
“The way we organize Question Period in Canada is ridiculous,” he says. He believes providing MPs with questions in advance of Question Period, for example, would foster a reasoned exchange of ideas.
Right now, he says, “It’s gotcha moments -- questions are not provided in advance. The goal is to catch the minister unaware. And that degrades Canadian political discourse.”
Designing a ‘user-friendly’ democracy
In his recent book, Enlightenment 2.0: Restoring Sanity to Our Politics, Our Economy, and Our Lives, Heath argues for a re-think of the expectations we have of individual citizens as well as the democratic structures we operate in.
“We’ve tended to think of human rationality as something located deep inside our brains. Whereas new psychological research shows that rationality is achieved through collaboration with people in groups and in a particular environment,” says Heath.
Heath says that the political system should be conceived with our cognitive limitations in mind. He puts an emphasis on design. Two-year-olds can figure out how to operate an iPad, for example, because it is designed in a way that plays on human instinct.
“I would love to see a discussion about social institutions that could be built to better suit the way we operate,” he says.
David Moscrop, who's working on his PhD in political science at UBC, says that if we acknowledge our mental limitations, we can design a democracy that takes into account our cognitive flaws. (Drew Gough)
Moscrop is a strong supporter of the idea of “deliberative” democracy, providing resources and incentives to citizens from all political stripes so that they can gather to discuss and advise on policy, using the results to influence politicians and also educate other citizens.
Such a practice, Moscrop hopes, would build civic engagement better than the current game of party politics, with its narrow focus on the ballot box.
He believes that if we acknowledge our mental limitations, we can design a democracy that takes into account our cognitive flaws.
“You change the structure, and the way things operate is going to change. But at the moment, the incentives are all there to do things at a base level.”
Listen to the Ideas documentary Too Dumb for Democracy on Thursday, Oct. 2 at 9:05 p.m. ET on CBC Radio One.?
