A HUNCH IS IT’S GOING TO BE SOMETHING

A few postings ago, I reported that our conscious mind can handle about forty bits of information while our subconscious can handle, according to one estimate, eleven million.  I found that hard to believe, but then I started thinking:  what about our subconscious taking in all the information from our body, for example?  We are not conscious of that until one of those bits of information indicates a problem.  That’s not to say that even our subconscious can detect all our bodily information; we hear of cases in which, without them knowing, a person is carrying a disease for significant amount of time till the condition is really bad.  But I have also heard of cases where, while the illness is not detected per se, a person has a “feeling” that something is wrong.  Of course, hypochondriacs have this feeling a lot, but they are mistaken. 

I bring up the subconscious because I believe a great deal of what polls are picking up now as to who is leading in the respective contests within the two major parties’ races for the White House is just initial takes on the candidates – not a lot of reflection has taken place.  Pollsters are hearing gut reactions to what voters have heard and how they see and feel about how the state of things generally is.  They are supposed to be angry, the media tells them they should be, and so, whoever comes across most genuinely angry, that’s the guy or gal the voter will tell a pollster he/she is likely to support come election day.  Donald Trump’s appeal, I think, has a lot to do with his language and tone, not his substance.  This is not new.  Review early favorites in the past and see that many did not make it even past the first few months of the campaign season, and did not last past a primary election or two.  By the way, the first two real selection process dates are January 1, 2016, for the beginning of the Iowa caucus process, and February 9 for the New Hampshire primary – four and five months away, respectively.  While that’s around the corner in those states, for most of the rest of us, we have many months to go.  Summer is in full bloom, although some areas’ schools have already begun.  The point is, a lot is tugging on the conscious minds of many Americans and interest and thinking as to whom to vote for are still in the future.

Within this context, I found a study Malcolm Gladwell reports in his book, Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking, interesting.  Let me tell you about it my own way:  Suppose I put you in a room with four decks of cards in front of you – the cards are face down.  There are two red decks and two blue decks.  You are to pick up a card at a time, from whatever deck you wish, and see what it is and, depending on what you pick up, you either win money or you lose money (I assume the money you lose was from an initial amount you were given or from money you had already won).  The amounts can be significant or not.  The trick to a winning strategy is to pick from the blue decks which results, in any given pick, to a modest amount of winnings if you win or a minimal amount of loss if you lose.  “Red” cards do pay off bigger amounts, but they also penalize you heavily.  The question in the experiment was:  how fast can you detect the formula to maximize your winnings?  Most figured it out by the eightieth card, although the subjects reported having a hunch by the fiftieth card; interesting finding, but that was not the most telling part.  The subjects were also hooked up to sensors in the palms of their hands to pick up any increase in sweating, a sign of anxiety.  Those sensors usually picked up problems with the “red” choice after only ten picks, a subconscious reaction.  Wow.

I would have been interested to find out if the subjects could see the cards on a computer monitor where the experimenters could change the likelihood of winning and losing picks at any time during the experiment.  Experimenters could then see if subconscious reactions would have been affected according to changes in the programmed schedule of winning and losing; maybe the experimenters did this, but Gladwell doesn’t report it.

In any event, in terms of the early phases of this election season and taking into account how much information the subconscious detects, it is interesting to ask:  what all is happening in people’s minds as they hear and see what the candidates initially have to say?   One of my concerns is that hunches are often correct.  Our subconscious’ ability to take in the information and determine some phenomena correctly is uncanny.  But usually that’s on the part of people who deal with the particular type of phenomena over large amounts of time.  Even they, though, cannot tell you why their hunches are what they are.  Gladwell tells of a tennis coach who could predict by the way a player tossed a ball up for a serve whether the serve was going to be a good one or not, even when the coach could not tell you what was wrong with the toss.  The coach’s predictions were highly accurate.  Most voters vote infrequently and they pay little or no attention to the political process other than during that time immediately prior to voting day.  In low turnout elections – and primaries tend to be that kind of election – two types of people show up:  ideologues and angry people.  Perhaps with a high profile figure like Trump, the numbers will be higher come primary day, attracting less informed people.  If so, how will that affect the process, especially on the Republican side?  It promises to be an interesting election season – hold on!