Erich Fromm and Conservation Science

To be successful conservation must alter the actions of individuals.  To alter the actions of individuals it is helpful to first understand human nature.  This is the realm of philosophy and psychoanalysis, of ideas resulting from slow and deep thinking not necessarily tested through experiments.  Instead of writing about what conservation can learn from other sciences, today I will write about what conservation can learn from the social sciences, particularly from Erich Fromm.

Eric Fromm (1900-1980) was a psychoanalyst (the Freudian school of psychology) and a social psychologist.  His ideas were not the results of experiments and consequent adjustments.  He worked up from the principles he believed to govern human behaviour, principles from philosophy, psychoanalysis and his own experiences and observations.  In ‘To have or to be?’, his 1976 book, Fromm wrote that most individuals “identify themselves by the following formula: I am=what I have and what I consume” and, consequently, in a conservation between two individuals of differing opinions “Each identifies with his own opinion.  What matters to each is to find better, i.e, more reasonable, arguments to defend his position.  Neither expects to change his own opinion, or that his opponent’s opinion will change.  Each is afraid of changing his own opinion, precisely because it is one of his possessions, and hence its loss would mean an impoverishment”.

I was first reminded of this passage when reading a paper advocating that scientists should not limit themselves to one theory (to prevent them from becoming too attached), instead they should suggest as many possible theories as possible and design experiments with the aim of disproving them.  It makes intuitive sense that individuals get attached to their ideas; Fromm offers a framework for understanding this.  He suggests that people derive their value, their self-worth from the ideas they create and then consume.  To lose an idea (to scientific progress) is just like losing another possession.

Fromm’s theory also has powerful ramifications for understanding the public’s stance on and engagement with issues of science such as global warming and GM technologies.  According to Fromm, an idea’s value is not a function of the idea’s use as a tool for making sense of the world (its usefulness); instead an idea’s value is determined by the cost of disowning that idea if a new, incompatible one is adopted.  More useful (i.e. correct) ideas do not necessarily replace less useful ideas, this means the initial ideas one creates regarding a subject are self-reinforcing and therefore very important.

Recently, the Cultural Cognition Project has produced quantitative evidence to support Fromm’s theory (I’m not sure if they were aware of Fromm’s work or not).  Their research showed citizens presented with expert sources regarding climate change were more likely to judge the expert source to be “knowledgeable and trustworthy” when the expert’s view agreed with their own.  Another study (by the same research group) reports that “Members of the public with the highest degrees of science literacy and technical reasoning capacity were not the most concerned about climate change” (authors’ italics).  The polarised opinions of two groups, separated on the basis of their political values, diverged as scientific literacy and technical reasoning increased, exactly as Fromm’s theory (“what matters to each is to find better, i.e, more reasonable , arguments to defend his position”) predicts.  

Andrew Balmford showed that children are better at identifying pokemon than real species (see here), might this be partly due to an ability to take ownership of pokemon (via card and computer games) which does not exist for real species (other than pets)?  How could this ownership be best replicated for real species?

Fromm suggests that keeping an open mind and avoiding dogmatism is difficult and requires active effort.  I suggest that it is the scientist’s role to purposefully keep an open and unbiased mind whilst they practice science, in their personal life, as with the rest of the public, they are free to respond to evidence however they like.