The Ethics of Cog Sci

Unfortunately, because my degree program in Cognitive Science is in science (instead of the humanities) there isn't any room for an ethics class. There is however room for the mandatory Calculus I and II. I hope that comes in handy, considering statistics was rejected from my final degree proposal. On the other hand I could have taken an ethics course as a general education requirement. Well possibly... after transferring between schools with completely different gneral education requirements, in order to pursue the BS in Cognitive Science; I don't know if I can blame myself.

In late night conversations in smoke filled rooms my friends and I talk about the future, and ethics of Cognitive Science. It is my hope that after I graduate I can do lab-research in the field. Perhaps eye tracking, an ERP lab, machine learning, doing work with games, or some other cognitive psychology laboratory. A question always arises "Why"? Why would one want to continue research in such a field? Usually the interrogator of the question is concerned that technology will eventually lead to humanity's downfall, "the end of the world". I do not necessarily disagree. 

I have often been criticized about how I use what I know about how people work in every day situations. When I explained to my friend that if I am in a club, sometimes I will approach a woman with another woman around my arm. The reason for this is building social report, simply put, if this person is invested in me, than there must be a good reason why. My friend told me that I was being sexist and manipulative. I argue that if after approaching someone with a friend, if I can get that person to open up to me, and have a meaningful relationship with them, then there is nothing wrong with what I am doing.

On the other hand, I could just as well take her home for the night. Is this still manipulative? Even after a string of other social engineering techniques? No, pinking up women isn't necessarily Cognitive Science; I would argue it is more social engineering, which I would argue can be a part of Cog Sci. The point I am getting at is that is just like any other form of technology, Cognitive Science could be used for good and bad. Yes computers can provide us with a wealth of information, but they've also proved quite well at collecting off of our personal information, and as much as they bring us together, they drive us farther apart through isolation, etceteria, etceteria.

The question remains, why is it important that we know what human eyes pay most attention to, and for how long, why do we need to know if the sound of a beer bottle opening triggers more brain activity in a alcoholic than an average person, why do we need to have computers that can "think" on their own. Obviously nothing good can come fro technology like this, and will only be exploited more by people like advertisers.

And the reason I give is a personal philosophy. It is that if heaven could ever exist, it would have to be manifested here on Earth. If we are ever going to achieve such a state, we need to understand how we operate, why we do the things we do. We need to understand that we operate on the same brains we had when we were cavemen; and that's why we are aggressive, why we believe in ancient superstitions, why our genitals control actions we make, when the woman in the club sees me approach her with another woman in my arm and recognizes what is happening.

Being able to understand the ways in which the cognitive biases, and facilities we make affect our judgement is a form of transcendence. If man can't understand that, than I believe that he deserves to be pruned from existence. Not necessarily "the end of the world", the end of the human race. The earth is 4.54 billion years old, we're 200,000 years old. Whatever we can cook up I am sure the planet can handle it.

The Boy Band Effect

Social proofing is a very powerful tool. There are all sorts of examples of this; another well known (academic) study was conducted by Milgram in 1969 (see source at bottom) where he had people stand around and look up at a window. Forty-five percent of the people on the street stopped if one person was looking up, eighty-five percent of the people on the street stopped if fifteen people were looking up. Social proof has also been used to cure phobias. In a 1967 study, children who were afraid of dogs were more likely to handle a dog themselves after watching another child play with the animal.

So whenever I see mountains of screaming fans I have to wonder if there isn't some social engineering happening. Do you remember that South Park episode where Cartmen goes to Chef for advice about making a boy band?

Cartmen: Chef, God told me I was to start a boy band and make ten million dollars. The problem is, it isn't working. I mean I feel the music burning inside me, but I just can't express it right, you know?

Chef: Well Eric I... I think you're just focusing in on the wrong thing. Boy bands aren't about music, they're created by corporations to make money, they're all based on the Garmlich effect.

Cartmen: What's the Garmlich Effect?

Chef: The law of physics that states if one girl screams for something, it will make other
girls scream and then it grows exponentially until all girls within a five mile radius are screaming.

Cartmen: But then how do boy bands use that?

Chef: All they do is make videos, showing tons and tons of girls screaming for the boy-band. Once you get them screaming you can't stop them, they're crazy. Ex.. except for Liz of course.

Cartmen: Thanks!

Chef: You're welcome! Now go away.

Cartmen: OK!

Chef: And a cucumber down the pants never hurt either!

Cartmen: Cucumber down the pants, got it.

I have to wonder if there is some truth to the fictional Garmlich effect. Have you ever seen the first Backstreet Boys, or The Beatles music video? They're all being chased, or surrounded by by hordes of screaming women! In all fairness N'Sync doesn't get chased until their second video, and there is only one woman. In their first video, they're all dancing together on a moon-base, 238 thousand miles from the closest female.

One cannot help but think that there is an artificial standard being created. I remember hearing about screaming fans being placed up front at Elvis and Frank Sinatra concerts, although I have no source for this.  Televangelists place plants in their audiences, why wouldn't music promoters do the same?

Social proofing is a heuristic, a shortcut to mental decisions. "If that worked for them, then the same must also work for me"! I would argue that this is the same behavior that makes men already in a relationship more attractive to other women. "If she's in a happy relationship with him, I can be in a happy relationship with him". Finally we may have an answer to the loaded question "why are all the good men taken"? There are of course other factors involved in this. It is a rule of logic for example, that the less of something there is, the more valuable it is.

Of course, our best defense against social proof is our knowledge of it. The book The Psychology of Influence has a lot more information on how marketers, and other people try to exploit these mental heuristics we are all prone to.I highly suggest this book as further reading material into the subject.

Bandura, A. (1967). The role of modeling processes in personality development. In W. W. Hartup & N. L. Smothergill (Eds.), The young child. Washington, DC: National Association for the Education of Young Children.

Milgram, S., Bickman, L., Berkowitz, L. (1969).  Note on the drawing power of crowds of different size. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 13, 79-82.