[Opinion] Rationality and Emotion

Anthropologists call today’s humankind Homo sapiens, meaning wise human being. Unlike animals living by instinct, humans are believed to think with their brains and make logical decisions. This is how we got the name. In fact, it has long been believed that people depend on rational thinking instead of instinct or emotion when they are making an important decision. Classical economics says that people tend to carry out economic activities according to the rational calculation of getting maximum profit.

True, the world is not always moving according to the economic model, but still, many economists have believed an elaborately made model will bring us closer to the reality. However, the newly developed concept called “Behavior Economics” or “Neuroeconomics” hints that this fundamental assumption on human behavior might be wrong. A scholar argues that perhaps the old saying of comparing humans with a carriage and pair is the right expression, but the problem is this pair is made up of donkey-sized reasoning and elephant-sized emotion.

One of the important pieces of experimental equipment in behavior economics is Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (FMRI), which shows the process inside the human brain when it makes economic decisions. This study will be a great help in explaining unsolved questions regarding economic events in the past. For example, at the moment of the stock market plunge, what creates a scramble for selling stocks? Is it a result of investors’ reasonable analysis or just their scary feeling?

Using the FMRI technique to view the process of people’s political thinking would be also pretty interesting. How does a voter’s rational thinking about the nation’s future influence the actual results? How well can politicians exclude personal interests and emotion when making a decision? The government has recently stepped up its efforts to advance brain-related science by bringing internationally renowned MRI experts to Korea. Now it also faces significant political agendas in series: establishing a new administrative capital, dealing with historical issues and abolishing the National Security Law. What other conditions would be needed for an experiment?

O Se-jeong, Guest editorial writer, Professor of Physics at Seoul National University, sjoh@plaza.snu.ac.kr