The Register® — Biting the hand that feeds IT

Feeds

Monkey brains explain nutty laws

Why politicians go bananas

Cloud storage: Lower cost and increase uptime

American scholars have blamed the woes of the world on the primate in all of us.

A paper in the Chicago Kent Law Review say that government decisions in crisis situations are directed by the primitive inner brain. The paper was produced by a lawyer and a psychologist, who obviously know what they're talking about.

Lawmakers rushing into making hot-headed judgments lies at the heart of the problem, they say. The response to September 11 is a prime example of "Emote control" - tight security at airports is meant to save lives, but instead causes more people to drive rather than fly and so causes more deaths.

Professor Jules Lobel notes: "Fear is a particularly strong emotion, impervious to reason."

The more complex deliberative system evolved in humans so we could weigh up the long-term consequences of our actions. Moderate levels of negative emotions warn the higher brain that its slower, more reasoned powers will be required. Intensifying fear or anger will soon take over though, kicking in the faster responding primitive brain, as the paper's co-author Professor George Lowenstein explains: "One may realize the what the best course of action is but find one's self doing the opposite."

It’s not all bad though, the researchers credit emotional decision-making for putting a man on the moon, vanquishing Hitler and, er, reducing air pollution.

Emotions are also more vulnerable to manipulation by marketers, since they are attuned to respond to novelty, and visual stimulus. I'm off to order a video iPod.®

Customer Success Testimonial: Recovery is Everything

More from The Register

New material enables 1,000-meter super-skyscrapers
Before you read on, see if you can guess how the new stuff will be used
 breaking news
You've seen the Large Hadron Collider. Now comes the HUGE Hadron Collider
International Linear Collider ready to rock and roll
 breaking news
Latest NASA ASTRONAUT class is HALF FEMALE
Newbie 'nauts include lady Marine fighter pilot, male doctor
Boffins find evidence Atlantic Ocean has started closing
'Embryonic subduction zone' that flattened Lisbon headed for Blighty
Google launches broadband balloons, radio astronomy frets
A careless Loon could blind the square kilometre array
Headbangers have a gas, gas, gas in mosh pits
Boffins say heavy metal crowds behave like The Vapours
Hubble spies unlikely planet being born in hostile neighborhood
Hoovering a cloud of sand 7.5 billion miles from a tiny star
 breaking news
Jaguar to open new car-making factory in Blighty (virtually)
Britain still makes stuff, it's just not real any more...
 breaking news
Spin doctors brazenly fiddle with tiny bits in front of the neighbours
Quantum computer address bus just nanometres wide
 breaking news
China's second woman 'naut blasts off for coupling in HEAVEN
Wang and pals test the cosmic waters for Chinese space station