JUAN TAMAD WITHIN US MAY ELECT OUR NEXT PRESIDENT

 

Marcos Jr. topped the latest survey.

If the election were held on the day of the survey, Marcos Jr. would win by a landslide.

It's likely to be a boring election in May 2022.

Question: Should we believe the message of the statements above? If we answer "Yes," then we're using only System 1 of our mind while setting aside our System 2.

System 1 and System 2 are the metaphor of the two agents that produce "fast" and "slow" thinking in our mental life described by Daniel Kahneman, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, in his book "Thinking Fast and Slow." Fast thinking System 1 operates automatically and quickly with little or no effort and no sense of voluntary control. Slow thinking System 2 allocates attention to the effortful mental activities that demand it, including complex computations.

Examples of System 1 automatic activities:

Complete the phrase "bread and..."

Answer 2 + 2 = what

Understand simple sentences

Examples of System 2:

Focus attention on the clowns in the circus

Park in a narrow space

Check complex argument's validity.

Question: Why would we set aside our System 2?

1. Mental operations of Slow Thinking System 2 are effortful

"[Slow] Thinking is difficult... complex... process with a course or direction, a lapse of time, and a series of steps or stages that lead to some result. To think well is a laborious, often painstaking process until one becomes accustomed to being 'thoughtful'." (M. Scott Peck, M.D. author of The Road Less Traveled)

2. Laziness is built deep into our human nature.

A general "law of least effort" asserts that if there are several ways of achieving the same goal, people will eventually gravitate to the least demanding course of action. Exhibit A: Juan Tamad Mentality

"[L]aziness. It is very real. It exists in every one of us – infants, children, adolescents, mature adults, the elderly, the wise or the stupid; the lame or the whole. Some of us may be less lazy than others, but we are all lazy to some extent. No matter how energetic, ambitious, or even wise we may be, if we truly look into ourselves we will find laziness lurking at some level. It is the force of entropy within us..." (Peck)

Consequently, our laziness holds us back to research and come up with the following survey facts:

Fact 1. Surveys are unreliable

Across the world, recent high-profile election survey failures are as follows: Britain and Israel elections in 2015, Brexit referendum in 2016, Colombia referendum in 2016, France election in 2017, Argentina election in 2019, US elections in 2016 and 2020.

The New York Times bannered such failures: "'A Black Eye': Why Political Polling Missed the Mark. Again." Politico's widely followed "Playbook" newsletter was notably scathing: "The polling industry is a wreck and should be blown up." Polling innovator Warren Mitofsky's blast from the past is a wise reminder: "There's a lot of room for humility in polling. Every time you get cocky, you lose."

Jose Ma. Montelibano's PDI column "Improbability" has triggered this amazement: Amid the recent failures of highly sophisticated election surveys in the first world nations around the world, wonder of wonders, our own local latest surveys have raved about hitting their targets with identical results as dictated by the opinions of 1,200 people (OCTA sample size) presumed to represent the opinions of the 63 million voters across the nation.

Fact 2. Surveys are biased.

A study "Why Polls Fail to Predict Elections" by Zhenkun Zhou et al., 2021, published in the Journal of Big Data, revealed:

"We find that a poor demographic representation combined with the inconsistency of opinion's respondents before and after the elections are the main reasons of the polls' failure. Beyond this sampling problem, the main problem we find is a clear tendency for the respondents to not tell the truth about their preference. This social-desirability bias was the main culprit for the failure of the polls."

In PH, the culprit is "nonresponse bias" where people have shown no interest in participating in the surveys. With the respondent's name and address known to the interviewer conducting the face-to-face interview, UP Professor Randy David said, "A sizeable majority of those surveyed admit to being afraid that they could be indiscriminately tagged as drug offenders." This fear-induced "nonresponse" bias cast doubt on PRRD's surveyed popularity ratings that might be the root of the Bato and Go endorsement flops ending in an embarrassing situation where the administration has no presidential candidate in an election.

Fact 3. Surveys are mental conditioning tools.

Sen. Richard Gordon filed a case many years ago against SWS and Pulse Asia for releasing pre-election survey results. He stressed:

"These surveys serve no public purpose except to rob the people of their right to be able to engage in a mental exercise where they can gauge their candidate's capability. It is mental conditioning in no uncertain terms."

These questionable and biased pre-election surveys have become the staple of political pundits' hair-splitting analyses. Here's a dire implication mentioned in Kahneman's book:

"When people believe a conclusion (survey results) is true, they are also very likely to believe arguments that appear to support it, EVEN WHEN THESE ARGUMENTS ARE UNSOUND" (underscoring mine).

Soon after, social media "echo chambers" would turn up repeating such unsound arguments multiple times to become believable to voters induced by "familiarity." Singer & Brooking, authors of the book Like War: Weaponization of Social Media, stressed:

"What counted most was FAMILIARITY (underscoring mine). The more often you hear a claim, the less likely you are to assess it critically." Exhibit A: Women are weak

Kahneman asserted:

"A reliable way to make people believe in falsehoods is frequent REPETITION (underscoring mine) because familiarity is not easily distinguished from truth. Authoritarian institutions and [campaign operatives] have always known this fact." 

A Case Of Being Stuck In A Fast-Thinking System 1 Mind

Taken from Inez Ponce de Leon's PDI column "The myth of the soft woman," this illustrative situation was about the conversation of Inez and her ride-hailing driver.

Driver (D): I want to vote for her. But she's a woman.

Inez (I): Why do you say, "But she's a woman"?

D: A woman is soft.

I: Why is that wrong?

D: Because the president of a country has to be strong and noble, right?

I: Why do you think this is important?

D: Because I'm a man!

I: So, are you voting for yourself or the country?

D: Oh, ma'am. Did you see what the Department of Health did last week?

Daniel Kahneman's topic on "Substituting Questions" fits the above situation like a glove. The driver's Fast Thinking System 1 mind could not answer Inez's last hard question that needed to engage his Slow Thinking System 2 mind. He looked around his System 1 a related easier question (say, "As a father, isn't voting for my family right?"). Amusingly, the driver could not find a substitute easy question like that in his System 1 to keep him away from Inez's attempt to engage his Slow Thinking System 2. Instead, he just diverted outright the topic by asking an off the subject question. A not uncommon incident in the light of the coming May 2022 election, such barren conversations have proliferated over the dinner tables across the country.

The crux of the matter: The need to "engage" the 70% of the voter population in their Slow Thinking System 2 minds on election education is crucial. The 30% is the bulk of voters presumed to have fallen prey to disinformation purveyors and their Fast Thinking System 1 mind taken over.

Let me conclude this mind-boggling article with M. Scott Peck's grim words:

"One of the major dilemmas we face as individuals and as a society is simplistic thinking (Fast Thinking System 1 mind of Juan Tamad) – or the failure to think at all. It is not a problem; it is the problem."