Bounded Rationality

We have all had moments when we “lost it”, when we allowed our emotions to take over from our rational thinking. In most cases this “switch” involves a decision e.g., if someone deliberately cuts us off in traffic, and we decide to aggressively chase them, flashing our lights, slamming our horn etc., we decided to lean in, and hand over control of events to our emotional self, and let it make the decisions for us concerning our following actions i.e., we decide not to think rationally; it is a choice we make. The term for such “thinking” is “bounded rationality”, a state of thinking and decision making that recognizes the cognitive impairments and limitations of the decision-maker e.g., if someone comes home to find their partner in bed with another person, the shock and surprise of this is going to effect how they respond etc. The legal system recognizes this, and if such an individual were to shoot that person, the charges and sentencing etc., would reflect this e.g., it may be described as a crime of passion. Violence is often categorized/classified as being instrumental or expressive e.g., if someone was to shoot/kill their partner in order to cash in on their life insurance, this would be an Instrumental act of violence, however if in the case above they shot their partner and their lover, it would be seen as an Expressive act of violence. Obviously, there is an instrumental aspect in Expressive Violence, even if that is just to satisfy and dispense emotions, such as anger and revenge. Often, when we consider self-defense scenarios and situations, we see ourselves as the innocent and/or aggrieved party and don’t consider how our responses may be seen as threatening to others and escalating the situation. We may even determine in the moment that we have a right to do so e.g., someone shouldn’t be allowed to talk to and/or treat us in a certain way, such as cutting us off in traffic, or shouting at us when we accidentally cut in front of them in a queue/line etc. In this article I want to look at some different methods we can use to help us control our emotional state and why this is important.

One of the first things we must establish when making a legal claim of self-defense is that of innocence i.e., have we taken any available opportunities to avoid a verbally aggressive confrontation from turning into a physical one etc. If we step towards an individual who has initiated an aggressively verbal dialogue and are in arm’s reach of them – where we can touch them – legally we may be deemed as having committed an assault (assault being the preceding stage before battery i.e., unwanted touching/contact). This may seem unfair as the other person “started it”, however our response of moving forward to engage may give the other person the claim/argument that we put them in imminent danger, and that was why they responded to our movement by physically attacking us. Recently I read a piece of research on CT-R (Recovery Orientated Cognitive Therapy), and how it was being used to help newly released offenders who had just completed long-term prison sentences e.g., fifteen years plus etc. Often such individuals have some form of PTSD (it is believed that around 24% of the US male prison population meet the criteria for PTSD) and talking about the events that led to their trauma can be triggering. With CT-R, the therapy talks about the future and reinforces positive behaviors to incidents that may involve conflict(s). It is worth noting that some of the institutions that those involved in the research had been housed in were environments that to survive an individual would have to be hyper-alert and aware for most of the time. This makes “peacefully” integrating into society challenging. What may seem a minor event on the outside, such as someone engaging in direct eye-contact for an overly long period of time, would be taken as a significant and major challenge/threat in a prison/jail setting. CT-R teaches an individual to give themselves at least 10 seconds before they respond to anything, and in that time to think about the potential consequences of their actions should they give in to their anger/emotional state e.g., what might be the potential consequences of being seen as the “physical” aggressor – stepping forward to engage – during a verbal dispute i.e., losing a legal claim of self-defense, and facing criminal charges etc. As one member of the study aptly put it, “if you stop when the light is yellow, you ain’t ever going to get into an accident.”

One of the most common types of situations where law-enforcement officers end up using excessive force is after a foot chase. It may be that the offender stops running because they are exhausted and know that it is unlikely that they’ll evade capture, or that they have to be tackled and brought down etc. The officer who has been in pursuit is adrenalized, possibly dealing with some anger and frustration at having their commands to stop ignored/disobeyed, and probably not in the most comfortable physical and emotional state. In such moments it’s understandable that they may be thinking in a cognitively impaired state and take the decision to use more force than may be necessary to apprehend and control the individual who forced them into a foot chase. This has also been seen in pursuit driving, which adds additional stressors on the officer engaged in the pursuit e.g., they must give chase whilst attempting to ensure the safety of other drivers on the road, and in certain situations consider the unpredictable actions of pedestrians. Many departments have an officer other than the one who made the pursuit make the arrest in order to avoid “pulling the suspect out of the vent window” etc. When the Las Vegas police applied a “hands off” policy for officers involved in foot chases (that was researched and evidentially based) use of force dropped by 23% with an 11% drop in officer injury. Many departments also have adopted “count to ten” style guidelines for foot pursuits where the suspect/offender is not putting them in immediate danger or appearing to be a threat.

Some aggressive situations move extremely fast, and so it may be useful to employ something like the “help scripts” used in forensic and psychiatric settings. These are scripts that allow you to slow a fast-moving situation down using preprepared lines, so that you can effectively count to ten as you are doing so. These scripts also allow you to quickly engage with an aggressor and demonstrate that you don’t represent a threat to them in any way. All of us have got caught up in a moment and allowed our emotions to take charge however this risks escalating a confrontation to a volatile point, when it could possibly have been de-escalated and a physical confrontation avoided.