Where does risk happen? In your head or in the world? Of course, the answer is in both. So, why is so much focus in risk put on the brain? Why are so many of the images we see about risk about the brain? Why do people think that tackling risk is ‘brain work’? Why do people think the mind is the brain? Why is it that when we hear the word ‘mental’ we think of the brain?

If you want to know more about enactive thinking and risk, you can register for the free online workshops run on 8, 15, 22, 29 September 9am Canberra time with Prof. Rob Long, register here: admin@spor.com.au

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All of this thinking is influenced by the images (semiotics) and metaphors we use related to thinking and making decisions. And, this kind of thinking is simple. It is based on what we know as ‘naïve realism’.

If someone presents you with a metaphor that says a brain is a computer, it seems to make logical sense. It’s easy to believe, because it simple and doesn’t require investigation or evidence. When we are fed images of brains as computers and metaphors of the mind as computing, it’s easy to believe without investigation. But there is no evidence in neuroscience to support these ideas indeed, Science tells us the opposite.

The Mind is not just the brain but the whole person. The brain is not a directing organ but a receiving organ. All of the systems in your body and the bodies of others (nervous, endocrine, respiratory, integumentary (skin), muscular, digestive, cardiovascular, reproductive, cellular, urinary, feeling/emotional and skeletal systems) send messages to the brain about what has already been decided.

Similarly, the social and ecological environment in which we interact is not neutral but rather affects everything we do and decided to do.

Thinking in this way about how we live in the social environment and with each other making decisions is called ‘enactivism’ (https://iep.utm.edu/enactivism/; https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/10597123261450094).

This short 14 minute video helps explain what enactivism is: https://youtu.be/U3GE-yqHlsU?si=XOhdYgkKx5pGnI-3

This diagram helps explain, all that is going on in enactivism:

This is why pulling the individual out of the social environment and just focusing on ‘human error’ doesn’t make sense.

Enactive thinking takes seriously that humans are inter-corporeal, inter-affected and Inter-personal. This means we know that: what others do, how others think, our environment, social meaning and how we feel, all work together to create what we ’enact’. This includes what we think about risk and how we respond to it individually and collectively.

For example, we know that humans think differently about risk if a child is present. We know that people think differently depending on the size of the crowd or group. We know that how we feel and how others feel in our presence, shapes how we think. We also know that we don’t think in a computational way, we think emotionally. We also know that computers don’t have ecological bodies and cannot think emotionally. We also know that our perception of reality is filtered by hundreds of biases and social factors. We also know that belief and faith drive behaviour and where we chose to be and what we chose to do. We know that our imagination and the imagination of others also drives what we do. Context alone does NOT drive behaviour (the HOP slogan is false).

In the human-social world, something happens in the air between ‘us’ and ‘them’ and this is what we study in the Social Psychology of Risk (SPoR). How do social arrangements affect decision making?

A good place to start thinking about Enactivism is with Gallagher (2017): Enactivist Interventions, Rethinking the Mind (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338539027_Enactivist_Interventions_Rethinking_the_Mind).

If you want to understand more about enactivism and the Social Psychology of Risk (SPoR) you can download our free hand book: https://www.humandymensions.com/product/the-social-psychology-of-risk-handbook/

Or

You can register for the free workshops on Enactivism and risk by email: admin@spor.com.au

Registrations close on 28 August.