In which I try to flesh out what it means to harness social forces and be a "fox" like F.D.R. or Clinton, and in which I argue that the script metaphor for social forces is too limited because it describes a mere special case of taking action on the basis of rules of thumb that happen to be poorly suited to a situation.

Consider a possible state of things:

1. People sometimes do give substantial consideration to alternative actions and then act on the basis of non-fallacious reasoning about which will probably produce better results (i.e., people can choose rationally, at least in this limited sense).

1. The vast majority of alternative actions any person faces will go without rational consideration because the brain can only consider so much at once.

1. Some of the potential choices that aren't given substantial consideration will be considered summarily and acted on heuristically (i.e., with a rule of thumb), and the rest will simply be ignored. You might imagine a spectrum, with defaulting (no consideration) at the start, cursory choice using a heuristic further along, and substantial consideration with rational choice even further along.

1. Any particular potential choice can be subjected to any of these amounts of consideration before action.

For example, I could decide to read property before torts for the considered reason that I will retain more when I'm fresh and I'm more likely to be called on in class for that subject (since I was called on recently in torts). While I think about that, I will forgo considering whether to start some rice cooking for dinner (about which I’ll probably default—I won’t consider it and won’t start the rice) and whether to check my e-mail (which I’ll hopefully dismiss summarily using the heuristic that when I’m getting ready to do schoolwork other tasks are not as important, but without thinking through the underlying reasons for this). I could, of course, instead consider thoroughly any of a great many other things—I could give great thought to what to wear the next day, for example. Such is life.

Deference to heuristics is what conmen and salesmen rely on, but such scripts exploit only one particular kind of heuristic—that a good deal is often present when the indicators Left catalogs are present and the warning signs are absent. There are many other exploitable heuristics.

For example, L.B.J. was famous for the Johnson Treatment, utilizing the rule of thumb that deferring to the demands of an imposing physical presence is likely to be prudent.

As another example, a man can be convinced to find a woman more attractive if she introduces herself right after he has crossed an unstable bridge, a study shows. Adrenaline is present while she is present, and he heuristically imputes this excitement to her.

As a further example, consider the rhetorical device of acknowledging an unfavorable point in a dependent clause buried in a long sentence to blunt its impact (e.g., “Second, although my client was observed holding the bloody knife and laughing, notice that, as testified to by multiple witnesses, ....”). This relies on the rule of thumb that something so situated is generally not of central importance.

In each of these situations, the heuristic need not control and instead the matter can be subjected to more substantial consideration, letting one snap out of it, as it were. For example, “Wait. Doing what he suggests would indeed make sense if the facts he asserts are true, but I really don’t have any solid basis for believing his factual assertions.” Or, "Sure he's looming over me, but we're not cavemen here and this doesn't mean he's going to prevail." Or, "Wait. I felt excited before the woman introduced herself." Or, "Oh! The author gives far too little prominence to this point that in fact undercuts his entire argument."

Carrying the script idea too far—indentifying it with the situation, instead of digging for the heuristics that the script relies on—can easily result in a sort of fatalistic cynicism, or at least muddle thinking about what sort of departure can be achieved.

Joseph’s Robinson does not resign himself to his apparent role in the game and negotiate a sentence within the range suggested by the charges brought against his Serbian-Fujianese client. And he does not merely break from the script and refuse stubbornly to play along, as someone who felt the script was out of his control might. Instead, he discerns the heuristics at play—acquiescing to charges selected by a prosecutor, assuming upstanding behavior by a victim, etc.—and subjects these factors to actual consideration, choosing to leverage bad publicity that he realizes he can create (and thereby securing his client a more fair outcome).

Staying on script can of course often be beneficial, if the particular heuristics are conducive to a beneficial outcome. But where a script is wrong and the system is off track, it’s because of some assumption that in the instant case isn’t applicable—and that can be identified and subjected to actual consideration. Exposing the faulty heuristic is an option available to “foxes” who notice that heuristics are indeed what underlie the script.

• This is well put together. You adduce some evidence in support of details in your theory of decision-making but no evidence for the overall structure or the stages and alternatives that comprise the structure. That means you are merely asserting that we work the way you say we do, and I am probably not the only reader who is not convinced.

• Your illustrations aren't very helpful, I think. Robinson is not dealing with anybody who is doing anything automatically. All of the movers in the situation of the kid who broke into the AUSA's bedroom are moving on consideration. Robinson is not taking advantage of automaticity in deciding: he is using rational pressure on rational decision-makers. The movement from intrapsychic to social analysis was part of the difficulty: Arnold explains one way of thinking about organizational irrationality; Gustav LeBon? and Freud contributed to modern PR, which offers another. Only Freud really interests himself in drawing connections across the boundary from intrapsychic to organizational psychology on the largest scales, and you don't seem interested in bringing him in, though it might be worth some consideration.

-- By GregJohnson - 27 Feb 2009