A key definition: cognitive bias
For the purposes of this submission, I use the term “cognitive bias” to mean - out of the many forms of bias the term covers - the form of bias that Cass Sunstein[1] calls “probability neglect”. Sunstein observes:
Dreadful possibilities stimulate strong emotional responses, such as fear and anxiety. Fortunately, most high-consequence negative events have tiny probabilities, because life is no longer nasty, brutish and short. But when emotions take charge, probabilities get neglected. Consequently, in the face of a fearsome risk, people often exaggerate the benefits of preventive, risk-reducing, or ameliorative measures. In both personal life and politics, the result is harmful overreactions to risks.
Referring to Sunstein’s work, George Dvorsky[2] uses a comparison between driving a car and flying in an aircraft as an example of probability neglect:
Neglecting Probability
Very few of us have a problem getting into a car and going for a drive, but many of us experience great trepidation about stepping inside an airplane and flying at 35,000 feet. Flying, quite obviously, is a wholly unnatural and seemingly hazardous activity. Yet virtually all of us know and acknowledge the fact that the probability of dying in an auto accident is significantly greater than getting killed in a plane crash — but our brains won't release us from this crystal clear logic (statistically, we have a 1 in 84 chance of dying in a vehicular accident, as compared to a 1 in 5,000 chance of dying in an plane crash [other sources indicate odds as high as 1 in 20,000]). It's the same phenomenon that makes us worry about getting killed in an act of terrorism as opposed to something far more probable, like falling down the stairs or accidental poisoning.
This is what the social psychologist Cass Sunstein calls probability neglect — our inability to properly grasp a proper sense of peril and risk — which often leads us to overstate the risks of relatively harmless activities, while forcing us to overrate[sic] more dangerous ones.
The effects of cognitive bias in aviation regulation
I suggest that:
• Aviation is an example,
par excellence, of an activity that evokes dreadful possibilities in many minds, especially when contemplating the prospect of the incompetence, incapacitation or mental illness – for whatever reason - of the pilot/s of an aircraft.
• The current approach to aviation medical certification neglects an objective consideration of the probabilities of those dreadful possibilities.
• This results in – to use Sunstein’s words - “an exaggeration of the benefits” of the current medical certification process as well as building “harmful overreactions to risks” into that process. (In my view, the same may validly be said of the broader aviation safety regulatory regime in Australia.)
The overreactions include intrusive medical investigations and interventions, and operational restrictions, which are unjustified by the risks, benefits and costs. The harm includes cost, stress, the deliberate withholding of potentially relevant information from DAMEs, anxiety about consulting medical practitioners ‘when in doubt’ and, in some cases, the unjustified destruction or impairment of careers and participation in private aviation. This harm is among a number of factors that have had, and continue to have, a stultifying effect on what should be a vibrant and growing general aviation sector in Australia.