It means that there is no constant value for a human life, that the value of a single life diminishes against the backdrop of a larger tragedy. We both figured it would - and that this is really a pretty scary kind of thing. I talked with Tversky about that, and if that applied to lives. If you're talking about $5,800 or $5,900 - seem the same, even though it's still $100 difference. The difference between, say, $0 and $100 feels greater than the difference between $100 and $200. Changes at small levels had a big impact, and then as the magnitudes got larger, it took more and more of a difference to be noticeable. It had something called a value function in it, which indicated how people value things as the amounts increased. I was struck with Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky’s work on prospect theory.
I've been doing research on risk for close to 60 years now. Where did this research begin? Paul Slovic UYGAR ONDER SIMSEK/AFP/Getty Images Brian Resnick
“There is no constant value for a human life” A Syrian refugee girl stands in a building on June 27, 2015, in Syrian Kurdish city of Amuda, after running away from clashes between regime forces and the Islamic State. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. We talked about why it’s so easy for politicians to neglect the masses, the power of a single image to inspire change, and whether we can build machines more moral than we are. Slovic’s research explains why the world often fails to respond to large-scale human suffering, but it also can inform how journalists or advocates communicate problems. This happens even when the number of victims increases from one to two. Slovic calls it “psychic numbing.” As the number of victims in a tragedy increases, our empathy, our willingness to help, reliably decreases. When numbers simply can’t convey the costs, there’s an infuriating paradox at play. It’s not surprising why political leaders often turn a blind eye toward refugees, or grow a callous heart when it comes to the hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants brought to the US as children. That we haven’t really grappled as a nation with the opioid epidemic, which killed 33,000 in 2015. That the world looked on as millions died in war and genocide in Darfur. That many lawmakers aren’t horrified by the possibility of booting tens of millions from health insurance. That’s why it’s not surprising six out of 10 Americans support a travel ban that, in part, bars refugees from entering America. “The value of a person's life declines precipitously with number. Slovic’s work has shown that the human mind is not very good at thinking about, and empathizing with, millions or billions of individuals. Slovic is a psychologist at the University of Oregon, and for decades he’s been asking the question: Why does the world often ignore mass atrocities, mass suffering? And in my conversations with scientists, I’ll often ask: “What research helps you understand what’s going on in the world?” The answer - whether it’s pegged to the refugee crisis abroad or the health care debate at home - very often involves Paul Slovic. There’s a hard limit to human compassion, and it’s one of the most powerful psychological forces shaping human events. When we see one life, we can imagine their hopes and pain. Can you even imagine it? Like, really imagine it. It’s an all-time high: likely the largest population of refugees and asylum seekers in human history. Hindsight, of course, is 20/20, and through these problems, I acquired some wisdom.There are now 65.3 million people displaced from their homes worldwide, the United Nations reports. In hindsight and maturity, I can see that: If I were true to myself and didn’t cave to peer pressure, I would never have played the dangerous game of football if I were more confident in my writing ability, I would never have accepted the ad agency job if I knew about situational awareness, I might have recognized the need for a burglar alarm sooner and if I had read the warning sheet provided by the pharmacist with the antibiotic, I would’ve recognized the symptoms of the adverse reaction sooner and not gotten as sick. There are always silver linings if you are willing to look for them.Įach of these incidents seemed beyond my control, and they were (based on my knowledge at the time), but each one provided a life lesson-that could prevent it from happening again if I paid attention. Initially, I was pretty upset about all of these events, but rather than let them turn me into a chronic victim, I found the silver linings.
“It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.” -Epictetus