I believe that Lee Harvey Oswald shot JFK. I think the moon landings took place as billed. And Diana’s car crashed into a pillar in the Pont de l’Alma without the assistance of the Duke of Edinburgh.
In the last case, I am particularly disinclined to believe in conspiracy theories since, prior to the accident, I had ridden through the tunnel in a taxi several times, the first when I was 11 years old. Each time I had the same thought: ‘God, this is a stupid design for a tunnel.’ It contains a long series of square concrete pillars along the central reservation, separated from the road only by a couple of feet and a feeble kerb. It is now 15 years since it saw the most famous car crash in history, yet no guard-rails have been installed. The real scandal this reveals is the reluctance of people to do something obvious (like installing guard-rails) when by doing so you might admit that you were wrong in the first place.
So while I don’t give much credence to conspiracy theories, I am always very ready to believe in cover-ups or face-saving exercises. The desire to contrive evil plans is comparatively rare; however, the urge to go to insane lengths to try to avoid regret or embarrassment seems to be innate and universal.
Watching Michael Portillo go round Greece offering people the choice between the drachma and the euro, one could not help coming to the conclusion that the Greek attachment to the euro was largely a question of identity and self-esteem.
And reading Daniel Kahneman’s book Thinking Fast and Slow, it becomes apparent that what are often mistakenly seen as relatively trivial human emotions (such as embarrassment, regret or loss of face) are worthy of greater study.
Slowly people are beginning to understand the role such emotions play in decision-making — for good and ill. Kahneman, joint-winner of the 2002 Nobel prize for economics, recently declared that if he were ten years younger he would become a neuroscientist. Other psychologists, such as Jonathan Haidt, author of the splendid recent book The Righteous Mind, are recently discovering the extent to which our political views are the product of the left and right having different moral tastebuds (the right-wing palate, you’ll be pleased to hear, is rather more sophisticated).
The really enjoyable thing about this vitally important field of study is that it is at the same time both momentous and gloriously trivial. You can use it to inform your views on the unfeasibility of European integration (do you need a common enemy to forge a common identity?) — but you can equally use it to inform the small decisions you take in your personal life.
A few years ago I had bought a couple of tickets to Paris for a weekend when the day before the trip I came down with a heavy cold. Having spent £180 on the tickets, I was determined to go through with it, and thereby spend another £500 in order to feel crap in hotels, restaurants and art galleries.
That evening I happened to read an article by a behavioural scientist, pointing out that we are disproportionately inclined to go through with plans in which we have already invested time, money or effort. The purchase of the tickets should be irrelevant to my decision. If I had not bought them, would I still be intending to go to Paris that weekend? I threw the tickets in the bin and spent a lovely weekend at home watching television in a duvet and overdosing on Lemsip. I hadn’t wasted £180. I had saved £500. All sense of regret vanished. Now that’s the kind of advice that deserves a Nobel prize.
Rory Sutherland is vice-chairman of Ogilvy Group UK.
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