Page 242 - The Power to Change Anything

Change the Environment 231

individuals weren’t resisting the idea of washing thoroughly or
wearing cheaper gloves or filling containers to the top—but
were not thinking of the behaviors in the moment—merely
putting the data in front of them was sufficient to change
behavior.
The point here is the same one Bandura helped make for
us earlier. Information affects behavior. People make choices
based on cognitive maps that explain which behavior leads to
which outcomes. The problem we’re now exploring deals with
our own lack of awareness of where we’re getting our data, as
well as how the data are affecting our behavior. Despite the fact
that we’re often exposed to incomplete or inaccurate data, if
information is fed to us frequently and routinely enough, we
begin to act on it as if it were an accurate sample of the greater
reality, even when it often isn’t.
For example, try this experiment. As quickly as you can,
name every place in the world where armed conflict is cur-
rently taking place. If you’re like most people, you can name
an average of two to four places. Now ask yourself why you
named these particular locales. Is it because these are the only
places? Perhaps they’re locations where there is the most blood-
shed? Or is it because these are the places of most political
significance?
It’s probably because these are the sites that have received
sustained media coverage. At any one time there are as many
as two dozen armed conflicts taking place throughout the
world, and it’s not uncommon that some of the most horrific
battles go largely unnoticed by the international audience.
What’s shocking about this is not that our mental agenda is so
heavily influenced by a handful of news producers but that we
are typically unaware that this is happening to us.
We frequently make this mental error because of a conven-
ient heuristic we carry around in our head. It’s known by cog-
nitive psychologists as the “representative heuristic.” To see how
it works, take another quiz. What is the greater cause of deaths