Rose McDermott Recent Advances in Neuroscience and their Implications for Political Science: Toward a Theory of Emotional Rationality1 Most of us are taught from early on that logical, rational calculation

rational thought. But if the brain decides that the information is threatening, it literally shuts down the processing of the higher mental processes through the release of catecholamine neurotransmitters which also turn on the action of the emotional brain to react quickly and efficiently to threats. This processing hierarchy evolved to help people survive fight or flight kinds of challenges, where you do not need to think before you act. You need to hit the brake in your car to avoid hitting the child in front of you before you think about who the child is, what you need to do to stop the car, and so on. The difficulty in the modern world is that many of our stresses are of our own creation and chronic secretions of catecholamines can lead to disease when we stress over abstract, long term problems over which we have no control. Damasio argues for the existence of his somatic marker hypothesis, whereby he argues that information received through physical senses in the body create and establish emotions, which then serve as the basis for our future decisions by providing a sense of what is good and bad, what causes pleasure or pain, on the basis of prior learning and experience where certain physical sensations are tied to particular emotional states. Once these associations are learned through physical interaction with the environment, they provide feedback when similar circumstances are encountered later. These learned emotional responses, which are continually undated with new information, then provide a quick and reliable reference for people to judge whether a person or situation is likely to feel good, and therefore be approached, or feel bad, and therefore be avoided. This network of associations allows the brain to use emotions to provide efficient and accurate information about a wide variety of phenomenon which help us make 29 decisions. In other words, feelings can give us direction and help organize our experience of the world in ways which help us make choices about the right way to act. The brain’s processing capacity is far greater than what exists in our conscious awareness, and emotions give us an opportunity to decide what to pay attention to in the world around us. And the brain, because of an evolutionary development that stressed survival, privileges emotional information over cognitive processing in the first stages of decision making. As Damasio writes, “I see feelings as having a truly privileged status. They are represented at many neural levels, including the neocortical, where they are the neuroanatomical and neurophysiological equals of whatever is appreciated by other sensory channels. But because of their inextricable ties to the body, they come in first in development and retain a primacy that subtly pervades our mental life.” (P. 159). So, what does this mean for the political science study of decision making? First, it undermines and subverts models of decision making which rely on notions of rationality to the exclusion of emotional reality. Often, in fact, when we exclude emotion, we make the wrong decision. If you are trying to make a decision about who to marry or where to live and try to make that decision without reference to how you feel about your choices, you are very likely to be disappointed with your outcome, because emotional experience remains an important and significant product of our decisions which should be considered to reach an optimal decision. In addition, while people often justify or rationalize their choices with all kinds of rational reasons, the basis of many decisions remain emotion none the less. I am sure most readers have had the experience of colleagues who vote against each other in faculty meetings out of sheer hate or spite, and then generate reasonable rational justifications for choices that are essentially emotional in origin. Ignoring those factors relegates those who might want to intervene to the 30 level of mere observers, as their rational and reasonable arguments are sequentially discarded in order to preserve a deeply held emotional feeling. Obviously, the pervasiveness of ethnic violence throughout the world speaks to the central place than emotions can play in violence in international politics. Second, emotion can provide a concrete mechanism for the establishment and operation of schemas. Emotions can tell us how we decide to recall and categorize prior events. We remember what we experienced the last time we felt a particular way, whether it is anger, fear, or happiness, and then categorizes these events in emotional terms., Emotions can also provide a better understanding of processes like learning, and how learning takes place and influences our beliefs and behaviors. Third, neuroscientific arguments about emotion can begin to provide a micro foundational basis for phenomena such as the origins of preferences, or the origins of framing effects. To the extent that emotions function as motivators and directors of attention, memory and sensation, they begin to inform us of the biological basis for choice. Finally, what would an alternate theory of decision making, based on emotional, as opposed to purely cognitive, processing look like? Recall that emotions are not necessarily irrational; rather, they are necessary for rational calculation to take place effectively and efficiently. So a model of emotional rationality would begin to reincorporate both the biological and psychological aspects of emotion into decision making. In studies of leadership, questions should begin to focus on how leaders feel about particular issues, alliance partners, and enemies. Much can be explained by allowing emotion to become a legitimate explanation for biases, beliefs, and behavior. Rather than having the burden of proof always rest on those who 31 would deny the involvement of emotional factors in decision making, explicit consideration of emotional factors might shed some new light on events or individuals whose beliefs or actions do not appear to rest entirely on rational calculation as we have traditionally understood it. While it is true that it might not be possible to generalize prototypical emotional response patterns across individuals with unique learning histories into emotional analyses of decision making, emotional assessments do provide an accurate empirical basis upon which to rest subsequent explanations and prediction. The basis of the beginnings of a model of emotional rationality starts with a single central insight: sometimes beliefs and behavior are generated and sustained not only by rational thought, but by emotional reality as well. And rational cognitive thought depends on quick and accurate emotional processing in order to function efficiently and effectively. Emotional processing can exist without cognitive evaluation, but accurate cognitive evaluation can not exist without prior emotional processing. If the two are severed, intelligence remains intact, but behavior becomes irrational. And until we begin to accept that emotional processing receives primary privilege in mental processing, we will not be able to develop accurate models of the human decision making process. Policy implications This application of recent developments in the neurosciences to political science does not, and should not, stop at the theoretical door. Rather, some interesting and important implications of this work for public policy exist and should be explored further. First, as Kahneman, Diener & Schwartz (1999) note, “economic indicators hold the most sway in policy circles (xi).” The reason for this is probably akin to Jervis’ argument about the 32 drunkard’s search (1989). People look where the light is, and economic indicators are relatively easy to obtain and compare. But is that really what policy makers are trying to get at when they assess such indicators? Is it really true that wealth is the only indicator that these decision makers are interested in? Probably not. It is more likely the case that wealth is used as a proxy indicator of level of happiness or contentment, which is a much more amorphous variable to measure and assess. Moreover, economic indicators remain poor assessment tools for this more important variable. As Kahneman et al. (1999) note, these indicators are limited in at least three important ways. First, they focus exclusively on the marketplace, which, by definition, leaves out some of the most central indicators of health, happiness, and longevity, such as marriage, social support, and exercise. Indeed, once basic material needs are met, more amorphous forms of fulfillment and meaning become primary. Second, economic models assume that people will maximize their self-interest, and yet it now clear from an abundance of psychological data that this is not always the case. Last, economic indicators can, at best, only indirectly assess the real variables governments should be interested in, which relate to the relative happiness and health of their population. Kahneman et al. (1999) suggest that nations should begin a more direct assessment of these final outcome states that they should be concerned about most, in order to complement current social and economic indicators with clearer data on the relative pain and pleasure in individual lives. And what do we know about what really causes people to be happy? How can we begin to think about what existing indicators can help us begin to address this question? The answer remains complicated, and obviously, quite individual. But research provides some broad general findings on the topic. In the larger sense, Freud was right: what matters most is success at work 33 and love. But there are some important qualifications, and some of them are surprising. Argyle compiles the most comprehensive relevant following data (1999). Age increases happiness, as anyone who accurately remembers their adolescence might attest. Education helps, mainly through its impact on income and status. Higher social class increases happiness through its impact on leisure and health. Surprisingly, income only seems to matter when people feel bad because they are very poor. Winning lotteries, for example, seems to make people less, rather than more happy. The one exception appears to be social comparisons in wage negotiations; here, it matters less what the absolute income is than how well a person does in relation to his or her peers. The most important source of happiness, bar none, derives from social support, which increases every aspect of mental and physical health. Note that this is not well correlated at all with economic indicators. Marriage has the strongest effect on happiness of any kind of social support. Divorced and separated people are the least happy, for example. Leisure appears to be an important source of happiness, as long as it is controlled and not imposed, as in unemployment. Exercise, music and volunteer work all increase happiness. Television exerts only a weak effect on happiness, as does intelligence and physical attractiveness. Social skills increase happiness much more than intelligence or attractiveness. Religion increases happiness among the elderly, but appears to be restricted to certain denominations, and seems to operate through the mechanism of increased optimism. Unemployment is, in fact, the major source of unhappiness. Ethnic groups initially appear to be less happy, but this effect decreases once income, education and occupation are controlled. 34 In short, happiness derives from marriage, employment, and leisure. Their absence increases unhappiness. Argyle (1999) joins Kahneman et al. (1999) in arguing that this data suggest that governments should place much less emphasis on incomes than they do, and much more on employment, leisure, and supporting marriage and other relationships. Education appears to be the best mechanism by which to accomplish this goal. So while political liberals might not like the notion that government efforts to sustain marriage could prove beneficial for overall happiness might still support the notion that increased education is good for everyone on several levels. Conclusions This paper has attempted to discuss some of the recent advances in the neurosciences and their potential implications for work in political science. The discussion began with a historical overview of the way in which the meaning and function of emotions has evolved within psychology over the last several decades. The next section attempted to cover recent literature on the interaction between emotion and decision making. The bulk of the discussion attempted to explore some of the potential applications of recent advances in the neurosciences for political science. One section mentioned ways in which this literature might be used to advantage by those working within the paradigm of rational choice modeling. The next section attempted to discuss an alternative approach to analysis of decision making based on emotional, as opposed to cognitive, rationality. And the final section mentioned some policy implications of this work. Just as in psychology, where the pendulum has swung back and forth between interest in emotion and disinterest in its impact, emotion seems now to be out of fashion in the work of political scientists. Rational models which assume emotions are bad to the extent they are 35 present dominate popular theories. Psychobiographies and personality studies have gone out of fashion, along with more complicated explorations of the emotional realities of leaders. No doubt some of the earlier applications of emotion to work in political science may have been misguided. But it seems clear that the honest mirror of introspection should inform scholars that emotion matters, that it influences thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors, even when we think it should not. And like the proverbial white elephant, to the extent that we ignore the existence and impact of emotion, it will continue to exert a systematic, unspoken impact on decision making.