On Fear of Flying
The recent spate of plane crashes, reported and rehashed at length in the media, got me thinking about fear and about airplanes. The news of a plane crash seems to lend itself particularly well to occasioning fear. This is no coincidence. Our fear system, after all, is not neutral but rather biased toward registering certain types of things, namely the objects and events that resemble those likely to have killed our ancestors.
Thus, many of the most dangerous things elude our fear radar because they do not resemble the type of things our brain was programmed by evolution to detect as such. You may include global warming and that heaping plate of greasy fries in this category.
Biological evolution is generally a slow process, but cultural evolution—the development of cultural tools such as technology, science, and systems of commerce and government--is fast. Therefore, the fear assessment tools we rely on were designed for a starkly different environment than the one we find ourselves in now.
This gap between what our brains were designed to do and what they are asked to do now is not limited to the area of fear. For example, our brains, designed to comprehend aggression as waving of fists and spears are now being asked to comprehend the notion of atomic annihilation. Designed for counting concrete objects such as the sheep in the herd, our brains are now asked to process abstract concepts such as ‘a hundred billion dollars.’ Our food intake and digestion system, designed to sustain us in a landscape where food supply was scarce, unpredictable and labor intensive now must operate in a new environment, where food supply is easy, abundant and predictable.
In this sense our predicament vis a vis many of our perceptual and cognitive systems is akin to the bear’s predicament in the event of sudden climate change. The heavy fur that evolved and served it well in the cold would cause it to overheat and die once the temperature suddenly rises.
Airplane crashes provoke such fear in part because--while new products of cultural evolution--they contain many of the elements that set off our ancient inborn perceptual and cognitive biases. We tend to fear sudden events. The death of 150 people at once is scarier than the same number dying over a year’s time. Since our most well developed sense is sight, we tend to fear visually vivid events. Of all natural disasters, heat waves kill the most people, but they don’t register as scary because they are visually quite shapeless.
Because fear has evolved as a warning system against danger, our cognitive systems often leap from ‘scary’ to ‘dangerous.’ But in our body, a limited number of systems must handle multiple tasks. Thus the same part of the nervous system that gets aroused in danger situations can also signal sexual excitement. Bodily manifestations of fear are often produced by non-dangerous stimuli. If we understand and internalize this fact our fear can morph into thrill—like scary movies and roller coasters. If we don’t recognize this mechanism, our self-protective efforts may backfire. Post 9-11 many people lost their lives needlessly because they replaced flying, which was wrongly perceived as dangerous, with driving, which is wrongly perceived as safe.
Being inside an airplane in flight evokes a synergy of primordial fears, including the fear of heights, of lack of control, and of enclosed places from which no escape is possible. In addition, most of us are ignorant about airplanes--not merely about the safety records of the airlines but also about the basic mechanics of flight: how does a heavy metal capsule float in the air like this? That this situation would be safe defies our brain’s ancient wisdom about how the world works: heavy objects tossed into the sky quickly drop back with a thud. Most of us experience turbulence as scary and are ignorant of the fact that turbulence to a plane is like potholes to a car—a bother but no mortal danger. We also tend to perceive the plane as dangerous and the flight crew as beacons of reassurance, when in fact most crashes are the result of human error, not equipment failure. Ignorance breeds fear.
But fear also breeds ignorance. Once we become fearful and register the fear object as dangerous, changing our conviction is tough to do, because our cognitive systems process information in biased ways. One such bias involves a ‘belief confirmation’ mechanism compelling us to seek and retain only the data in line with our conviction. Once you believe planes are dangerous, your mind will easily register and store plane crash information, while plane safety information will be glossed over. How many of those who are scared of flying have paid systematic attention to the number of planes that land safely every day?
Moreover, once our mind is set we do not only fail to seek disconfirming evidence but also actively fight against it once presented--a cognitive habit called ‘belief perseverance,’ demonstrated by an old joke: a patient appears at the psychiatrist’s office claiming that he’s dead. The psychiatrist asks: do you know that dead people don’t bleed? Of course, answers the patient, everybody knows that. The psychiatrist then takes a needle, pokes the patient’s finger, and lo and behold, blood gushes out. The patient looks at his bleeding finger and says: I’ll be darn, doc; dead people do bleed!
Thus, many of the most dangerous things elude our fear radar because they do not resemble the type of things our brain was programmed by evolution to detect as such. You may include global warming and that heaping plate of greasy fries in this category.
Biological evolution is generally a slow process, but cultural evolution—the development of cultural tools such as technology, science, and systems of commerce and government--is fast. Therefore, the fear assessment tools we rely on were designed for a starkly different environment than the one we find ourselves in now.
This gap between what our brains were designed to do and what they are asked to do now is not limited to the area of fear. For example, our brains, designed to comprehend aggression as waving of fists and spears are now being asked to comprehend the notion of atomic annihilation. Designed for counting concrete objects such as the sheep in the herd, our brains are now asked to process abstract concepts such as ‘a hundred billion dollars.’ Our food intake and digestion system, designed to sustain us in a landscape where food supply was scarce, unpredictable and labor intensive now must operate in a new environment, where food supply is easy, abundant and predictable.
In this sense our predicament vis a vis many of our perceptual and cognitive systems is akin to the bear’s predicament in the event of sudden climate change. The heavy fur that evolved and served it well in the cold would cause it to overheat and die once the temperature suddenly rises.
Airplane crashes provoke such fear in part because--while new products of cultural evolution--they contain many of the elements that set off our ancient inborn perceptual and cognitive biases. We tend to fear sudden events. The death of 150 people at once is scarier than the same number dying over a year’s time. Since our most well developed sense is sight, we tend to fear visually vivid events. Of all natural disasters, heat waves kill the most people, but they don’t register as scary because they are visually quite shapeless.
Because fear has evolved as a warning system against danger, our cognitive systems often leap from ‘scary’ to ‘dangerous.’ But in our body, a limited number of systems must handle multiple tasks. Thus the same part of the nervous system that gets aroused in danger situations can also signal sexual excitement. Bodily manifestations of fear are often produced by non-dangerous stimuli. If we understand and internalize this fact our fear can morph into thrill—like scary movies and roller coasters. If we don’t recognize this mechanism, our self-protective efforts may backfire. Post 9-11 many people lost their lives needlessly because they replaced flying, which was wrongly perceived as dangerous, with driving, which is wrongly perceived as safe.
Being inside an airplane in flight evokes a synergy of primordial fears, including the fear of heights, of lack of control, and of enclosed places from which no escape is possible. In addition, most of us are ignorant about airplanes--not merely about the safety records of the airlines but also about the basic mechanics of flight: how does a heavy metal capsule float in the air like this? That this situation would be safe defies our brain’s ancient wisdom about how the world works: heavy objects tossed into the sky quickly drop back with a thud. Most of us experience turbulence as scary and are ignorant of the fact that turbulence to a plane is like potholes to a car—a bother but no mortal danger. We also tend to perceive the plane as dangerous and the flight crew as beacons of reassurance, when in fact most crashes are the result of human error, not equipment failure. Ignorance breeds fear.
But fear also breeds ignorance. Once we become fearful and register the fear object as dangerous, changing our conviction is tough to do, because our cognitive systems process information in biased ways. One such bias involves a ‘belief confirmation’ mechanism compelling us to seek and retain only the data in line with our conviction. Once you believe planes are dangerous, your mind will easily register and store plane crash information, while plane safety information will be glossed over. How many of those who are scared of flying have paid systematic attention to the number of planes that land safely every day?
Moreover, once our mind is set we do not only fail to seek disconfirming evidence but also actively fight against it once presented--a cognitive habit called ‘belief perseverance,’ demonstrated by an old joke: a patient appears at the psychiatrist’s office claiming that he’s dead. The psychiatrist asks: do you know that dead people don’t bleed? Of course, answers the patient, everybody knows that. The psychiatrist then takes a needle, pokes the patient’s finger, and lo and behold, blood gushes out. The patient looks at his bleeding finger and says: I’ll be darn, doc; dead people do bleed!
posted by Noam Shpancer at 6:41 PM
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