Unexpected uncertainty leads humans to change their behavior and adopt new habits even when these are not necessary.
- When people experience an unexpected change in their environment, they start looking for ways to reduce that uncertainty to regain control.
- When this uncertainty is expected, people maintain their behavior, as seen with climate change.
Researchers have discovered why many people rushed to stockpile toilet paper at the start of the health crisis. A buying spree that led to shortages when in most cases there would have been enough for everyone if people only bought what they needed. By studying the effects of uncertainty on human behavior, Australian researchers from the University of New South Wales in Sydney suggest that the unexpected is a powerful enough motivation to change our habits, even when it’s not good for us. .
Find a way to regain control
In a new study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, researchers show how humans adapt to a new and uncertain situation. “When people experience an unexpected change in their environment, they start looking for ways to reduce that uncertainty.says Dr. Adrian Walker, lead author of the study. They may change their behavior and decision-making strategies to try to find a way to regain control. Surprisingly, our study found that unexpected uncertainty caused people to change their behaviors even when they would have been better off sticking to an old strategy..”
To test how people react to unexpected change, researchers tasked study participants with selling items to aliens in a virtual simulation. The goal was to get the most points, in this case “foreign dollars”. Each volunteer had to choose which alien to sell a pair of chemicals to knowing that only one of those chemicals determined how much the alien would pay. It had to be determined which chemical and alien combination would bring them the greatest rewards.
Changing his behavior, not really the best idea
A first group of 35 participants familiarized themselves with the task and quickly learned that a strategy gave the best offer of 15 points. But halfway through the experiment, the reward model changed and this option eventually gave a random number between 8 and 22 points. “As soon as we added an element of uncertainty, participants started looking for new ways to accomplish the task when the best thing they could do was to use their old strategy.”, noted Dr. Walker.
For the researchers, these results corroborate what has been observed during the pandemic. “Everything changed very suddenly at the start of the Covid-19 crisisdescribes Dr. Walker. Many of us have suddenly worked from home, changed the way we shop and the way we socialize. The rules we once lived by no longer applied, and there was – and still is – no clear answer on when or how the pandemic will end.. Different people have tried all sorts of things, like panic buying, to reduce this newfound uncertainty and get back to ‘normal’. But as we have seen, not all of these reactive strategies were good in the long run..”
When uncertainty is expected, behaviors stay the same
Secondly, the researchers observed how the participants adapted to situations of expected uncertainty. For this, they gradually introduced uncertainty in a different group of 35 participants with always the same experience. When introducing uncertainty, this led to transforming the 15 points of the best offer to 14-16 points, then to 13-17 points, until the uncertainty rose to 8-22 points.
As a result, participants’ behavior did not change dramatically, although uncertainty eventually reached the same levels as in the first experiment. “When uncertainty was gradually introduced, people were able to maintain their old strategies”, observed Adrian Walker.
The fable of the boiling frog
For the researchers, these results are also observed on a large scale in the face of major challenges such as climate change. “When change is slow and barely noticeable, there is no sudden incentive to change our behavior, and so we stick with the old behaviors.advances the researcher. Trying to take action on climate change is a lot like the fable of the boiling frog. If you put a frog in a pot and boil the water, it won’t notice the threat because the water gradually warms up, until it becomes too late to jump..”
In a new study, researchers want to go further and find ways to engage people in climate action. “If we can identify the triggers for exploring new alternatives, then we might overcome the inertia inherent in developing new sustainable behaviors.”, says Ben Newell, who participated in the study.
.
