Why do we do stupid stuff?

Why do we do stupid stuff? Public safety and the psychology of risk.

“If all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you?”
– Every parent, ever

Nowadays, for some kids the answer to the above question will be, “Well yeah, obviously, if someone films it.” 

And, on one level, you can’t argue with them.

Do something unbelievably risky, get a mate to capture it on their mobile and if it goes viral on Tik Tok, you can earn clicks, kudos, followers and revenue.

It’s not as if teens have ever needed an excuse to do daft things, now they’re getting paid for it. 

It’s the same over on Instagram. Influencers love edgy, urban backdrops… bridges, abandoned buildings and especially railway tracks, with their perfect parallel lines stretching out to the horizon.

Which isn’t great news if your job is to stop people trespassing on the railways.

For over a year we’ve been working with Network Rail on anti-trespass activity and, more than anything, it has reaffirmed our view that human behaviour is nuanced, complex and dynamic.

Which is precisely why we love this type of work. Unravelling the challenge and finding the answers relies on a mix of behavioural science, creativity and strategy.

And the most satisfying thing is that if you get it right – and the stats suggest we have ­­– you save lives.

So why do people make such jaw droppingly bad decisions on the railways?  

The truth is that while viral videos and trackside selfies may get more coverage on news sites and tabloids, there are more common reasons for trespassing.

Short cuts are one. Often it’s about people ­– not just teenagers – not taking the time to walk to bridges or gated crossings and just nipping over the line.

And here it’s not necessarily about laziness, it’s a subtler behavioural bias: overconfidence. The common view among trespassers is simply, ‘I’m smart enough to hear a train coming and get out of the way.’

An extension of this is the Dunning-Kruger Effect – the less people know, the more likely they are to overestimate the extent of their knowledge. And as the saying goes, a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing ­– especially if you mistakenly believe that trains are noisy and tracks offer clear vantage points. Tragically this is often not the case; modern trains can almost silently reach speeds of up to 125 mph meaning you won’t always get enough time to react.  

For teens, risks are seen as a rite of passage

Adolescence is prime time for risk-taking. An undeveloped frontal lobe can mean teenagers are hard-wired to be impulsive and reckless. Anti-authoritarian instincts come into play and peer pressure can encourage reward-seeking until the brain’s cognitive control system kicks in when early adulthood begins. And culturally, risk taking is often celebrated, seen as maverick individualism, a common trait of entrepreneurs and cultural icons.  

Risk taking in teens can be fuelled by other biases. Confirmation bias means we look for evidence to support our pre-established views rather than staying open-minded. Is dodging across a railway line too risky? Nah, there’s load of stuff online about people doing handstands on the tracks or playing chicken with their cars on level crossings.

It seems as humans, we need to evolve a little more

Dig a little deeper and the science suggests our brains don’t always help us in assessing risks.

Unhelpfully, humans have two competing cognitive systems for dealing with risk: the primitive fight or flight response emanating from the amygdala and the much more recently evolved ability to assess risk analytically that happens in the neocortex.

These two systems can contradict each other, so we can overthink immediate risks which causes paralysis in decision-making, or spend our time stressing over less imminent threats, such as financial worries or job insecurity, our bodies filled with stress-inducing adrenaline for ridiculously long periods of time.

So, what have we learnt from all of this?

It often takes more than advertising messages alone to change established behaviours. But taking the time to unpick the biases and heuristics driving the behaviour and building your strategy around it can make a difference.  

You can read about our solution in our anti-trespass case study. In summary, we avoided pointless judgemental finger wagging, and simpy communicated the hard facts, leaving our audience to decide for themselves. Crucially, we delivered our campaign via our audience’s influencer peers, a decision based on another cognitive bias, the ‘messenger effect’ – namely that we judge messages partly on who delivers them and how much we trust or empathise with that person. By choosing our messengers carefully ­– the likes of LV General and Elz the Witch – we generated over a million views.

On the rails and elsewhere, people will continue to do stupid things, but at least there’s a growing understanding why they do it and what can be done to mitigate it. Ultimately, educating people, introducing friction in the right places and channelling their risk-taking instincts towards less lethal areas may be the way to go.