Loewenstein 1996 - Out of Control - Visceral Influences on Behavior

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Loewenstein, G. (1996). Out of control: Visceral influences on behavior. Organizational behavior and human decision processes, 65(3), 272-292.

Summary

The author attempts to explain the paradox of why some people will consciously act against their self-interest, despite knowing better. This is attributed to visceral factors, a drive state (like hunger or thirst or craving) that has a direct hedonic impact (often negative, see Never Enough for info on biological states induced by drugs) and affects the relative utility of various goods and actions. If intense enough, these visceral factors will “crowd out” other needs and goals in service of mitigating the single visceral factor. For example, an addict might have an intense visceral craving for a drug that could cause the relative utility of “obeying laws” to decline to a point where the marginal cost of breaking a law is outweighed by the marginal cost of not scoring.

Visceral factors are aversive. More intense visceral factors will produce a higher discrepancy between one’s viscerally affected actions and one’s actions in a normal state. Simple proximity to a visceral factor stimulus, or even a cue related to the stimulus, will increase the intensity of the visceral factor. Additionally, even when dealing with first-hand experience, people tend to underweight the strength of these visceral factors, both for themselves and others. Visceral factors can be so powerful that they prevent decision-making (e.g., falling asleep at the wheel). This inability to explain one’s actions (“I don’t know what got into me”) can be particularly difficult (“haunted by the memory years later because it was so difficult to understand”). This explains why, “at sufficient levels of intensity, individuals will sacrifice almost any quantity of goods not associated with the visceral factor for even a small amount of associated goods.” Interrogators use similar techniques (e.g., sleep deprivation) to induce betrayal of comrades. Lawyers and negotiators use deprivation to get concessions. Visceral factors can be strong enough to effect both conscious and unconscious action.

Application

“Any addict can tell us how long such negative motivation [to stay off the drug] lasts. It lasts as long as the memory of the undesirable consequences stays strong.” In attending the peer group Alcoholics Anonymous, the undesirable consequences of alcoholism are consistently brought up and made vivid, thereby causing an aversiveness to the stimuli. Hitting “rock bottom” can produce a vivid enough experience so as to be unforgettable to an addict (like a metaphorical scar that serves as a reminder). Perhaps this is why some people, after growing up poor and with a scarcity mindset, are driven to such success – or hoarding. One tactic for overcoming visceral factors is to vividly imagine both the potential rewards and consequences of satiating the visceral factor (see “self-protection against sexually transmitted disease” on p. 286).