They wouldn’t think of preventing many statistically riskier parenting decisions so long as those decisions jive comfortably with social norms.
Source: Working Mom Arrested for Letting Her 9-Year-Old Play Alone at Park – The Atlantic
This problem is everywhere – social behaviour decisions, government policy implementations, day-to-day corporate decision-making. The reason, hinted at in the quote above, is two-fold:
- Strength of ingrained social norms
- Mental effort required to understand statistical risk of decisions
Other potential reasons, I guess, are:
- Decision fatigue, or coping mechanisms for it – people avoid making decisions requiring involved thinking if they can get away without them , and
- Conflict avoidance – going with less controversial, more socially accepted option, even if it may be the worse/wrong choice.
What can (should) be done to overcome these hurdles? (Other than defining regulation more rigidly to take decisions out of hands of people, and/or ‘educating’ people)