Innate Decidophobia (WG&J, 1.1-1.6)

Reading these sections reminded me of a documentary I saw on some of the cognitive differences between primates. In the documentary, they reported the results of an experiment that illustrated some of these differences. The experimenters crafted a small box that held M&M's inside that could be opened with a lever, but the lever was somewhat hidden. The experimenters presented the box to their subjects (either a small child or a chimpanzee) and performed an elaborate ritual involving tapping the box in various places with the stick. At some point in the ritual, the lever is finally tripped and access to the M&M's is granted. All this time, the subject watches. Next, the experimenter closes the box and places it in front of the subject, allowing the subject to attempt to obtain the M&M's.

The difference between how chimps and small children respond at this point is striking. Chimps pick up immediately on how to obtain the M&M's - they go straight for the hidden lever. Human children, on the other hand, recreate the elaborate ritual that the experimenter showed them. The connection to decidophobia may not be clear, so let me explain. The child is treating the experimenter - an adult, presumedly - as an authority that must be correct. The chimp, on the other hand, merely treated the adult as someone to learn from - not as someone who is infallible. Several of the strategies for dealing with decidophobia seem to have the same sort of flavor as the child's actions. Exegetical thinking treats the text as an infallible authority. The exegetical thinker may ultimately twist the message of the text in the process of interpretation, but the fundamental similarity remains in the assumption of an infallible authority. Religion, another of the strategies of the decidophobe, tends to share this feature though perhaps without the exegetical thinking. Allegiance to a school of thought also shares this feature in the underlying and often unrecognized assumptions - axioms - of the school of thought.

So some of the strategies for avoiding decision making seem to have a fundamental similarity with how children react to the box experiment, but what to make of this? The documentary used this experiment to illustrate that humans naturally take on a student-teacher relationship which puts the teacher in an authority role similar to that of the experimenter in the box experiment. This distinguishing feature of humans among other primates allows the species to effectively transmit knowledge and culture through the generations. It appears that several of the major strategies for dealing with decidophobia are rooted in a deep part of human nature. I'm curious if decidophobia itself has similar roots (I bet it does).

Bart's comment on Pete's post is fortuitous because it hits on an interesting point that can be raised here. Some of the strategies that decidophobes use to deal with their aversion to decision making appear to be extremely beneficial to survival - transmitting culture and technology to later generations is a great way to ensure the continued survival of your genes! But that doesn't address a more fundamental question - is decidophobia itself adaptive? How could not making a thoughtful decision be beneficial? I have some thoughts on this, but I'll hold my tongue until Kaufmann has a chance to intimate his own ideas.