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Safety Psychology: Reptiles and Mammals

Marc Green


Statistics, because they are numbers, appear to us to be cold, hard facts. It seems that they represent facts given to us by nature and it's just a matter of finding them. But it's important to remember that people gather statistics. People choose what to count, how to go about counting, which of the resulting numbers they will share with us, and which words they will use to describe and interpret those numbers. Statistics are not facts. They are interpretations.(Levitin, 2016)

Belief doesn't simply follow fact, belief decides what the facts are. (Blastland & Spiegelhalter, 2013)

The discussion of the null ritual underscored the limitations of relying on statistics to find the "truth." There are other reasons to be wary of statistics, as I explain below. The scientific method is only an abstraction and an idealization. Like all idealizations, attempts by humans to apply it to the real-world reveal limitations, deficits, and biases. How could it be otherwise? The limitations, deficits and biases of science are the limitations, deficits and biases of humans.

In safety, it is easy to focus on the details. Scientific research has provided volumes of statistics on mishaps1 and the possible remedial measures that they suggest. Data mining provides vast quantities of numbers concerning correlations of who, what, when and where fatalities occur. This would seem to provide a firm footing, especially when supplemented by other forms of research such as surveys. However, the numbers at best only present one side of the safety equation. The other side is the costs. Moreover, these numbers cannot be easily evaluated without starting at the meta-issue level to view the overall terrain. As Levitin (2016) notes, statistics are not facts but rather interpretations. Even before looking at the numbers and interpretations, it is important to start a safety analysis by examining the psychology of those presenting the interpretations.

Like most topics, it is easiest to start by outlining a clear-cut dichotomy. Anyone who spends much time in courtrooms is probably familiar with the notions of reptilian and mammalian brains. An influential book (Ball & Keenan, 2009) presented a trial strategy for plaintiff lawyers to win their cases. In doing so, the authors succinctly delineated two ways of thinking about risk, harm, and safety. Their insights extend far beyond the courtroom. They capture the way people collect and interpret data and the way they think about cost, benefit, and sharing of restraints. The two brains view the world very differently. The reptilian brain is an early evolutionary development, containing structures such as the brain stem and the cerebellum. It is primitive and controls basic autonomic functions like breathing. It is an emotional center and exerts a strong influence in survival emergencies--flight or fight. In contrast, the mammalian brain is newer and more advanced and controls logical and analytical thought. Roughly speaking, the reptilian brain is emotional and the mammalian brain is rational.

Ball & Keenan (2009) suggested that plaintiff lawyers could sway opinion best by appealing to the reptilian brain. Emphasize that a person who breaks some general safety rule is creating a danger to the community. The appeal is also to subconscious, deep-seated fears about the safety of the self and the family. In short, the goal is to scare the reptilian brain, which is neither analytical nor logical into believing that survival is at stake. When this is accomplished, rational argument is tuned out. A convincing argument is one that sidesteps the mammalian brain and appeals directly to the reptilian brain. The goal is to get the jury to make their decision based on the "affect heuristic" (Finucane, Alhakami, Slovic, & Johnson, 2000) which eliminates conscious, analytical thought.

Ball & Keenan (2009) say that a good reptile safety rule has several characteristics. Four are most relevant:

    1. It must prevent danger (being struck by a distracted driver);
    2. It must be clear and simple (cell phone wielding drivers kill pedestrians);
    3. It must explicitly state what one must or must not do (e.g. drivers must not talk on a cell phone while driving); and
    4. The rule must be one that the defendant has to agree with or seem stupid, careless, or dishonest (e.g., talking on a cell phone while driving is harmless).

The duality captured by the reptilian and mammalian brains is not a new idea. It predates Ball & Keenan (2009) by several millennia. The ancient Greeks personified the emotion-logic conflict in the gods Dionysus and Apollo. Modern cognitive psychology similarly divides brain operation into "System 1" and "System 2" (e.g., Stanovich & West, 2000; Kahneman, 2011). System 1 is emotional and wholistically operates at high speed on feelings and impressions. System 2 is rational, analytic, effortful and slow. The duality has also long been noted in rhetoric, the study of persuasion. A basic tenet is that persuasion is based on three supports, ethos, logos, and pathos, corresponding to credibility, logic, and emotion. Rhetoric also stresses that logos alone never convinces anybody of anything. A good example is how NHTSA uses its ethos and apparent logos of the meaningless "alcohol-related" statistics concept to appeal to the pathos of the naive. (More on this another time.)

The difference between the reptilian and mammalian brains is important in issues such as road safety. Scientists and authorities are people with beliefs, motives, and goals. Understanding those goals allows for better assessment of the evidence. While true of basic research and accident investigation, motives and goals are a much stronger driving force in a highly politicized and ideological area such as road safety. That is why looking at the data and the methodology is as critical in safety as in collision analysis.

In the reptilian worldview, VRU is shorthand for "victim road user." VRUs are victims who are simply innocents that have bad things happen to them so factors such as cause and control play no role. To think otherwise is to blame the victim. The Reptilian ideology simply scans the world for victims and seeks to punish the oppressing miscreants. When a conflict pits big and powerful vs. small and weak, it is easy to tell who's the victim and who's the oppressor. On the roadway, that makes vehicles and drivers the ones who should be punished, i.e., pay all the costs.

For many, however, paying the cost goes beyond simple safety and into much bigger issues such as the creation of a just society, the survival of the planet, the distribution of wealth and so on. Road safety research is often just a proxy2 for these issues. Bicycle safety measures are implicitly (and occasionally explicitly) aimed at the twin goals of promoting bicycle use and punishing drivers to get automobiles off the roads. In the reptilian brain's view, automobiles and their drivers are the threat to the community. Restraining, and eventually eliminating, drivers is an ideological end in itself and not just a safety issue. As true reptilians, they see disagreeing with their worldview as stupid, careless, or dishonest, or even worse, insensitive. It may seem odd to raise such issues in a discussion of safety and human factors, but where better to see their real-world consequences. Unfortunately, ideology, such as postmodernism, has penetrated science and public safety policy so deeply over the last decades that scientific evidence can no longer be discussed in areas such as road safety without considering the worldview of those presenting and guiding it (e.g., Bauer, 2017). Moreover, ideology is important because blame and responsibility are not inherent in events but are rather socially constructed and the result of the language used to describe the event (Dekker, 2009). The choice of the term "vulnerable road user"3 rather than the more neutral "nonoccupants," is a perfect example. Slovic (1999) underscored the importance of worldview when noting that risk and by inference its flip-side of safety:

[i]s socially constructed. Risk assessment is inherently subjective and represents a blending of science and judgment with important psychological, social, cultural, and political factors. Whoever controls the definition of risk controls the rational solution to the problem at hand. If risk is defined one way, then one option will rise to the top as the most cost-effective or the safest or the best. If it is defined another way, one will likely get a different ordering of action solutions. Defining risk is thus an exercise in power.

The evaluation of evidence then requires an assessment of the language, motives, goals and politics of those doing the interpreting. Science is not performed by disinterested parties (Johnstone & Finch, 2011). The idealization of science in areas such as contrast sensitivity, eye movement or perception-response time is warped by the personal career ambitions of individuals, but there isn't much political or ideological influence. On the other hand, much of the current approach to road safety (and other social policy) is performed by reptiles masquerading as mammals and having other thinly disguised social, ideological, and political motives. These often coalesce into the "White Hat" bias (e.g., Cope & Allison, 2010), the distortion of science for righteous ends. It is an example of the more general effects of "cultural cognition," seeing the world through a filter of cultural identity (Kahan, 2012). To paraphrase Haidt (2012), the filter of cultural identity creates a morality that "binds and blinds."

One strong cultural identity derives from the "paradise past" myth of the noble savage who was naturally healthy, ate organic food and didn't pollute the planet with cars and factories. When a paper begins by extolling the presumptive health and ecological benefits of bicycling/walking, it is hard not to suspect that there isn't at least some White Hat bias and paradise past thinking at work.

White Hat bias also runs amok in the impaired driver literature, where risk factors such as aging, distraction, and alcohol are exaggerated by questionable methodologies. It also is the rationale underlying most reptilian organizations, e.g., MADD and Vision Zero/Harm initiatives (see Long, 2018).

It is important to bring these biases to light when making a rational evaluation of road safety (or any other) research and resulting policy. All science is social science in the sense that it is performed by humans who are members of social and cultural groups that affect beliefs and create mindsets which show up in their data and their interpretations. Researchers tend to perform studies that confirm prior belief, which colors the facts and interpretations that reach public awareness (Goldacre, 2010; see the Blastland & Spiegelhalter, 2013, quote above). The social and cultural biases of those conducting much of science are all too obvious. This is one one of many reasons that so many distrust science. Unfortunately, the distrust, even when overblown and misguided, is often based on a realistic assessment of the goals and motives of those conducting the research.

Footnotes

1I avoid using the word "accident" as much as possible. It is a vague and ambiguous term that ignites large debates over its exact meaning. The major (but not the only) dispute lies in predictability. The term "accident" often connotes unpredictability so an "accident" is an "act of god." Since it is unforeseen, it cannot be prevented. Many object to this view because it implies that nobody is to blame. Moreover, this view also runs directly contrary to human factors which sees "accidents" as having causes and being somewhat predictable so that they can be eliminated or at least reduced in frequency. Some in road safety (e.g., Evans, 1993) have noted these issues and suggest eliminating the word. William Haddon, the first administrator of the National Highway Safety Bureau, went so far as to propose ten cent fines for every time attendees at safety meetings said the word "accident" (Loimer & Guarnieri, 1996). At least one journal, BMJ, has banned the term altogether (Davis & Pless, 2001). I prefer "mishap," which carries less baggage than "accident."

2For example: "Bicycles have the potential to transform our society into one that respects all nature, including our fellow humans" and cars "encourage its owner to get fat and unhealthy" and "even if they never crashed," they still require "obliging healthy and harmless walkers to yield priority to inactive and polluting drivers." (Walker, 2012). Is this person going to produce "objective science?"

3"VRU" apparently contrasts with "IRU," invulnerable road user, the vehicle occupants who paradoxically die on the road each year in greater numbers than the VRUs.

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