I’m reading Thinking, Fast and Slow right now at the suggestion of a couple colleagues who are social scientists with an inclination toward meteorology. It’s an interesting book on psychology in its own right, but I’m reading it with the intention of gleaning some ideas that can be applied to why people make the decisions they do (or don’t) make when it comes to weather.
I just finished a portion of the book that deals with gambles. The evidence is that, when a person is presented with a scenario in which neither outcomes is desirable but the guaranteed outcome is less bad than the one that has a mere probability of occurring, that person is more willing to take the gamble. For example, if I’m presented a scenario in which I’m either guaranteed to lose $50, or I have a 50% chance of losing $100, I’d likely be more inclined to take my chances. It occurs to me that this might be applicable to why people drive through flooded roads.
It’s been suggested that one reason people may be willing to take that risk is that they are on their way to work and don’t want to be late/can’t be late for various reasons. That is a reasonable guess, in my opinion… and the idea of the gamble, also in my opinion, sheds some light on the deeper reasoning. If a person feels that the options are 1) try driving across the flooded road and probably (in his/her estimation) making it, or 2) turning around and getting to work late and definitely getting chewed out by the boss and/or losing that portion of one’s wages… then based on what we know about gambles, it’s no wonder so many people take their chances.
Now, one could sit back and rationally say “but don’t they know that they could get stranded or even die?” But people aren’t always rational! Another point this book drives home. If you think people are rational, you are mistaken. Besides, if they have determined that the risk of crossing the road is reasonably low, then it will be very difficult to convince the person otherwise – something drastic would have to occur to get the person to change the narrative and prediction that had he or she had determined to be true. Yet another set of points this book highlights! We make predictions and tell ourselves stories based on limited information, and notice or seek out cues that confirm them and don’t notice (or even outright ignore) ones that refute them.
Finally, I think sunk cost (guess what, the book also touches on that) plays a role. People are very resistant to abandoning their current path once they’ve invested in that path, even bailing would be the objectively rational thing to do. To the person facing water flowing over the road, they’ve already taken the time to go on this route. To turn around and find another route would mean that the time they’ve invested up to this point would have been a waste, and so they forge ahead.
There are a lot of things in the human mind that sometimes work against making what we consider the right decision. I suppose one glimmer of hope is that the author also found that short rhymes stick in people’s minds quite well, so phrases like “turn around, don’t drown” do have potential.