look after the pennies…

A frequent criticism levelled to the reluctant voter is: ‘ if we all took that attitude anyone could get into power…’ (and for want of a nail the kingdom is lost). ‘A no-vote is better than an uneducated vote’ would be a reasoned retort, or still, abstention precipitates improvement. Indeed, the disinterest in politics over recent years manifested in low turnouts has, apparently, done much to change the media coverage of politics, inevitably feeding back into the political system itself.

A common approach adopted when unable to rationalise the value or justification in a change, action or event is to consider the impact of a large sample or an extreme case, often justifiably so. At times we intuitively reason if a thing is detrimental at an extremity, then a fractional dosage or single occurrence is proportionately damaging. Of course we know this isn’t universally true, after all, our stomach is lined with acid. Generally, though, in life it seems we reason, if not act this way, until experience, logic or common sense dictates otherwise. Such a bias probably has a name; if not, it should certainly have one.

In maths there are classes of functions defined as monotonically increasing, monotonically decreasing. If a function is monotonically increasing (don’t run away) between two points, say, a and b, then as we inch along from one point to the other the function, or curve, always increases. Smoking as a function of physiological health is an example of such a decreasing function. Views citing indifference at either extreme of activity may well exist, but arguments purporting some amount of smoking to be good, or indeed any increase to be less damaging are non-existent (not, though, strictly satisfying the monotonic criteria). The same though is apparently not true of Bordeaux’s finest; while over indulgence is naturally to be avoided, research suggests a glass or two a week is beneficial. Perhaps gambling’s psychological effect traces a similar path to red wine’s physiological one. Certainly it is simplistic to reason a monotonic impact on those respective health-states since excess indulgence afflicts.

This, say, monotonicity bias, plays a supporting role in poker discussions from time to time too, both explicitly and implicitly. The first one I’ll mention is an implicit occurrence on the subject of whether or not to reveal hole cards.

Next Article: To show, or not to show. 25th May