#rational decision-making

The effort to shift the focus of secondary government courses from where it is now – on national political factors and the major structure and processes of the national government – to a consumer orientation – how individuals identify, seek, and secure governmental services – is more involved than one might suspect.  One area of responsibility and in which individuals have a right to seek satisfaction is in them advancing their interests when interacting with their government.

          Therefore, before those individuals finish their formal education, a course of study should be dedicated to how and why they can be functional and responsible regarding how they interact with what would probably be their local government.  And unlike other dealings, interactions with government have added elements to which citizens should be aware.

          That is, that instruction assumes that one, interaction with government calls for reflective decision-making (not reflexive responses), and two, citizens engage in public decision-making not private ones.  Individuals, once dealing with government and the public domain, are subject to public scrutiny, at least in terms of the reasoning they bring to bear in their dealings.  Surely, most such interactions stay below the radar, but the possibility to solicit public interest is always there.

          There are times when individuals interact with government and the matter is fairly straight forward.  All that individuals need to know is the process by which to successfully conclude the interaction.  At other times though, individuals are faced with moral decisions.  That is, they must decide to engage in cases in which their self-interests or the interests of loved ones are involved, and some moral or ethical element is engaged. 

In the first case, the straightforward ones, a cognitive deficiency might exist (lack of knowledge).  A consumer government course would be geared to remedy this deficiency to a meaningful degree.  Naturally, it would provide the appropriate information or share the appropriate sources where that information can be found.  In the second case, the moral ones, individuals need to apply rational, public decision-making skills.  This course can be organized and committed to teaching a rational decision-making process.[1]

From what this blog has shared concerning the offering of a consumer government course – a sharing that started with the posting, “A Practical Turn” (March 19, 2024) – this course of study could strive to achieve the following relevant educational aims:

To prepare students for normal, social adult life.

To prepare students to identify, protect, and advance their legitimate self-interests.

To prepare students to recognize their social and legal responsibilities.

And at a more specific level:

By the end of their formal education, to develop:

Cognitive skill knowledge that allows them to interact with government agencies in such a way as to generally protect and/or advance their self-interests,

Cognitive skills that allow them to interact in a rational fashion,

Cognitive knowledge of the responsibilities society legitimately expects them to meet, and

Willingness to engage in public discussion that relates to the issues inherent with controversial decision areas where government-citizen interactions are concerned, and moral values are considered.

And with those aims this posting comes to an end and suggests that to come in upcoming postings are instructional ideas that can be utilized in achieving these aims.

In the last posting, this blog presented a game.  It’s called the dollar auction in which literally a dollar goes up for auction.  The scholar who introduced this game, Martin Shubik, reports that he made, on average, $3.40 playing the game and acting as the auctioneer.  He even reports making up to $20 in one playing of the game.  The auction is conducted as any auction with one difference:  not only does the highest bidder pay his/her bid, but the next highest bidder must pay what he/she bid while walking away with nothing.

         The reader is invited to look up that posting if he/she missed it.  It’s entitled, “In for a Pound.”  It leaves the reader with a preview of this posting and suggesting the dollar auction has something to say about the nightmare the Vietnam War proved to be. It also gives insight into the financially disastrous experience the initial Concorde supersonic passenger aviation program was.[1]

         In terms of Vietnam, Laszlo Mero[2] points out that President Johnson’s early speeches on the war were full of idealistic, but rational messages.  The emphasis was protecting democracy, advancing freedom, and promoting liberty.  A war that advances these ideals can be rational if the costs are reasonable.  

But as time passed, the American public became more informed as to what the politics of South Vietnam were – corrupt and lacking in these idealistic attributes – and the costs became evermore significant.  The idealistic calculation to most Americans became skewed toward withdrawal.  Consequently, Johnson’s rhetoric became “in for the pound” sort of argument.  He said withdrawal would damage the national honor, would be a step away from halting Communism, and/or it would project weakness. In short, as in the dollar auction, the nation, in the estimation of the policy makers, had invested too much to walk away.

This reminds one of marginal analysis which this blog has described at various times. Should one do X (continue the war)? Rational thought calls for a marginal analysis.  One is reasonable in continuing – or even starting – something if one anticipates that the extra benefit from doing it exceeds the extra cost involved.  How much more will it cost to continue the war? What can one expect will be the reward in doing so?  

The first of these questions is relatively easy to determine.  War expenses are well understood – heaven knows, unfortunately, the nation has had sufficient experience to have such an understanding.  But how about the second question?  What was known at the time that assisted policy makers to answer that question?

The recent film, The Post, dramatizes the fact that it became known among policy makers that the US could not win the war – either in terms of an outright capitulation of the enemy or a withdrawal due to attrition of their resources.  That was the central message contained in the Pentagon Papers.

Ergo, it was irrational to continue the war, much less escalate it.  Yet, escalation was the policy of the Johnson administration. The “in for the pound” arguments prevailed much to the tragic results in terms of human life and national – both to Vietnam and the US – resources.  Since then, it is amazing to this writer how much the relationship between the two countries has become as positive as it has.  Perhaps a rash of rational thought has broken out.

As for the Concorde example – a cooperative venture between France and Britain – it was to develop and institute intercontinental passenger service using a supersonic jet – it traveled twice the speed of sound.  Here, another aspect of these calculations comes into play. It is rational for the developers of the program (functioning as an auctioneer in this example) to provide estimates of future costs as being lower than is the case.  Lower initial costs lures consumers – France and Britain – into the program, but as the project evolves, the costs first become more realistic and then become exorbitant.

Mero writes of how TV programmers are aware of this phenomenon and front-load programs with few commercials (low costs to the viewer) and then, as the viewer invests his/her time and interest into the program, loads those commercials toward the end of the program.  By that time, the viewer is so invested that he/she is very unlikely to leave the program due to any annoyance the commercials provide.

Likewise, as France and Britain sank their investment dollars (pounds or francs), they fell victims to “in for a pound” thinking.  Withdrawal was tantamount to admitting foolishness with the nation’s treasure.  That is not a formula for success in the political thicket of democracies which both France and Britain were and are.  Therefore, before the Concorde was abandoned (the service lasted from 1969 to 2003), a lot was lost down that rathole.  One can figure the project was abandoned as more and more of the initial politicians departed the scene.[3]

This notion of the dollar auction can be presented in civics and history classes. The game can add insight into what otherwise can be quizzical.  Vietnam is one example, but this dynamic reoccurs often both at the national level or at the individual level and all levels in between.  Secondary students are old enough to note their own folly along these lines or of that of their parents, relatives, or school officials.  

“In for the pound” thinking happens all the time.  As Mero writes:  “The principle of the dollar auction keeps many people in unsatisfying jobs and unhappy marriages.  Every fight is basically a dollar auction; if it isn’t, it is not a fight but a thrashing.”[4]  Surely, by secondary school years, a student has had first-hand knowledge of a fight or two, perhaps even a thrashing.  Hopefully, these are not physical (they usually aren’t), but, surely, they are always emotional.

[1] There is currently talk of reviving the Concorde.

 [2] Laszlo Mero, Moral Calculations:  Game Theory, Logic, and Human Frailty (Springer-Verlag, NY: Copernicus, 1998).

 [3] Of course, the Concorde crash in the year 2000 seemed to hasten the program’s demise.

1,000 Pieces of Candy

Want to know a little behind-the-scenes tidbit about our new video, 1,000 Pieces of Candy? Watch it first and then click below. (You should actually watch it first, though—because spoilers follow.)

Our collective awe over how science and technology have affected our lives is noteworthy.  I note, for example, as I walk in a mall or other areas where there are a lot of people, how many are carrying and using hand-held devices that hook them up to global information systems.  A marvel indeed.  It is not surprising, therefore, to see how intrusive that worldview of science and technology has been on how we see human behavior and human problems including those that manifest themselves in group or other collective settings. Our reliance on those disciplines to show us how to better our social relations seems prudent and not so far-fetched. But, as with any scientific and technological approach, certain assumptions are made when we study human behavior.  We need a starting point since, as with any segment of reality, complexities abound and in order to get a handle on those complexities, we need to assume some things. We should, as best we can, be mindful that we operate under any such assumptions and calculate how they might affect our analysis of what we observe is going on, what we determine is wrong, and what we decide we should do.

 Implementing change in our social venues is no different.  If we want to approach changing some social dynamic, be it ongoing, episodic, or highly occasional, certain assumptions are inevitable.  In the history of such efforts, a leading strategy – the empirical-rational approach – has adopted the assumption that humans are rational and that they will choose to behave in such ways that offer the highest level of reward while minimizing costs.  Further, those determinations are done on the margin; that is, they take the following form: if I do X, it will marginally improve my condition over what is and it will cost me Y amount more than what I am expending presently.  That is, we determine whether marginal benefit is greater or less than marginal cost. Economists treat this as comparing marginal revenues – how much more money will be attained – and marginal costs – how much more money is expended.  If marginal benefit (marginal revenue) is more than marginal cost, then it is rational to do X.  If marginal benefit is less than marginal cost, then it is rational not to do X. Now substitute a proposed change for X – say hiring one candidate for a job over another candidate – and you get the rational considerations assumed by strategies classified as empirical-rational strategies which are identified by the authors Robert Chin and Kenneth D. Benne. They claim that this category of change strategy is the type most commonly employed.[1]  If one makes such an assumption, the main work of change agents that ascribe to this type of strategy is to acquire, analyze, and distribute the scientific/technological information that facilitates such calculations.  This can be done so that clients, students, or patients can go about making the determinations over proposed change(s) that this type of assisting professionals (consultants, teachers, or medical practitioners) proffer.  Procedurally, this strategy includes such activities as diagnosis, education, and evaluation as a professional studies the problem area, devises change options, educates the subject, and evaluates the implemented change activities.  Less than acceptable results indicate a lack of appropriate knowledge and the need to do more research.  As such, the assumption itself is not questioned.

 One might ask:  what usually interferes with implementing needed change or with the success of an implemented strategy?  One often cited cause is wrong personnel.  Fitness for the job is often considered lacking.  Solutions, therefore, are often hiring new people or rearranging the roles of existing employees.  This bias can be a cover of sorts to act out biases for existing conditions instead of a way to implement change.  In any event, as for working toward curricular change, the object of my interest in addressing this concern, this option of changing personnel is not readily available for a variety of reasons.  What we generally find is that this strategy, empirical-rational approach – is apt to work more readily when considering “thing technologies” – e. g., computers, TV, or other electronic tools – as opposed to “human technologies.” The hang up seems to be that with human related change, a lot more is going on than merely the simple calculations of marginal benefits and marginal costs.  This is what Chin and Benne have to say when commenting on specific curricular change of a particular effort:

When we assess this situation to find reasons why such researches have not been more effective in producing changes in instruction, the answers seem to lie both in the plans of the studies which produced the materials and designs and in the potential users of the findings.  Adequate linkage between consumers and researchers was frequently not established. Planned and evaluated demonstrations and experimentations connected with the use of materials were frequently slighted. And training of consumer teachers to use the new materials adaptively and creatively was frequently missing.[2]

More is going on than with the aforementioned calculations of marginal benefits and marginal costs. There are role considerations, considerations based on reputational factors, held biases over curricular content, ongoing social chemistry within the classrooms, and the like.  “Field testing” of curricular materials is a tricky business and yet we are talking about a very limited domain of change, whether a set of materials will be used or not in the instruction of some content. To change an entire approach to a subject area or to how we run a school would promise to be way beyond the conceptual parameters of a marginal benefit vs. marginal cost calculation.  Why?  Because benefits and costs in such a proposed change encompass a very large set of relevant factors that are often very difficult to measure or even identify.

 What we do know is that some content will be taught and some manner of operation will be in play in a given school at a given time.  “What is,” in these domains, is usually there as a product of the evolutionary forces that affect a given school.  I had the opportunity to work on a faculty that opened a school – a brand new school. While there, I often stopped to consider that, as different situations popped up, there was not an established way to handle them.  We, as a faculty, were creating “the way.”  It was a weird experience.  And yet, we as a group of workers at that new school were establishing the way that probably still influences how things are done there today more than thirty years later. Changing those elements incurs a cost, some costs being quite high.

 So, if one does want to institute a new curriculum, especially if that newer curricular choice entails some changes in how the school staff sees itself, how it runs administratively, and how it considers itself along democratic measures, one cannot see such a project as simply another change effort.  These types of changes go way beyond empirical-rational considerations. They will not be accomplished overnight.

 Oh, excuse me; there is another approach to change that touts a fairly quick and efficient process.  I will, in my next posting, address the power-coercive approach.  As with empirical-rational approach, power-coercive does offer some useful ideas, but the level of its comprehensiveness will be questioned.  As for empirical-rational, I do appreciate the basic assumption.  We do act on the margins.  The problem is, when it comes to human interaction, we simply can’t simplify what constitutes benefits and what constitutes costs, especially at the margins.

[1] Chin, R. and Benne, K. D.  (1985). General strategies for effecting changes in human systems.  In W. G. Bennis, K. D. Benne, and R. Chin (Eds.), The Planning of Change (pp. 22-45).  New York, NY:  Holt, Rinehart, Winston.

 [2] Ibid. Citation on p. 28.