Neophobia in its psychological pretext is the pressing fear of things that are new, including changes in routine and food. A looser look at general neophobia, in social psychology terms, brings us to look at why ideas, inventions, fashions, morals and other societal changes are often resisted despite their logical advantages. Examples include the outcry against centralized timekeeping and against soldiers wearing camouflaged clothes. A modern example is the irrational fear of genetically modified food. Neophobia is easy to see in retrospect, but it is harder to see where it might be having an effect on us right now.
- Medical Neophobia
- The Status Quo Bias
- Neophobic Reactions
- Religion's Role in Neophobia
- Spotting and Preventing Neophobia
- Conclusion
1. Medical Neophobia
In medical and psychiatric terminology, "neophobia" is mostly associated with an aversion to new foods that is severe enough to have dietary implications. It is also associated with autism, where daily routines are followed compulsively, and any change in them causes extreme discomfort. As a medical condition it involves a dysfunctional panic-reaction to new things. This page is not about the medical disorder, but about neophobia as a general trend in society.
2. The Status Quo Bias
2.1. Introduction
People are biased towards things as they are now, and are biased in general against changes. This bias manifests itself in many subtle ways and people construct excuses and reasons in order to support their 'gut feeling' against change. Such reasons are intellectualisations of an intrinsic feeling. Often, even though all the facts may suggest that a change is for the better, many people still oppose it due to this 'feeling', this status quo bias as some cognitive psychologists and social theorists call it. Every social psychology textbook includes a section which iterates through experiments that have demonstrated the status quo bias in action.
2.2. The Fear of Change is Greater Than Known Risks
En masse, populations continue over-eating, smoking and taking illegal drugs despite the seriousness of the known risks. The first two items in this list are the two biggest causes of mortality apart from heart attacks (in some countries). Changes in lifestyle choices can prevent over half of all cancers1. These risks are ignored because the behaviour is normal and common. But with new technologies even where the risks are known to be tiny, undetectable or unreal, people cite 'unknown risks' as the reason for their repulsion. Mountains of evidence point to smoking as a cause of cancer, and the lack of risks associated with mobile phone usage. But which do people fear most? People tend to ignore good scientific advice about old vices they already indulge in, yet fear new technology. This is neophobia.
3. Neophobic Reactions
3.1. Reactions Against Youth Culture
It seems to many in the modern era that current elements of youth culture are particularly rotten. Mass stupidity, mass ignorance and intolerance, rising crime rates and youth violence all seem related to violence in modern music and film. Yet you do not have to delve too far back into history to find that every era has had the same concern. Professor Sonia Livingstone is Professor of Social Psychology and Head of the Department of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics, and she says that "every technology generates a huge anxiety that it is rotting children's brains, ruining family life and alienating children from the community. We've heard these claims for every medium there's ever been, from comic books to film and television and mobiles"2.
It seems that there is always something popular amongst the young that elders consider to be too dangerous to allow to accept. There is always some new mass-media technology threatening the fabric of society. Writing, the printing press, illustrated prints and the internet have all been hailed as the end of social humankind, and to be a cause of ignorance. Is this all a simple case of neophobia, of the older amongst us simply rejecting elements of youth culture that happen to be new? I think yes, but, it is also not the whole story, as Professor Ferguson alludes to in an essay on video games and youth violence:
“We'd love it if our children would read more, take an interest in classic Greek plays, or get more into the music that we older folks enjoy. Society's elders repeat the same cycle from generation to generation, becoming suspicious of new art forms that they don't use and have no use for. It appears to be part of human nature to disparage youth culture whenever it emerges, perhaps as a means of maintaining dominance in the guise of "protecting children."”Ferguson (2009)3
3.2. Reactions Against Mass Media
- In present times, much criticism is aimed at the violence and grimness of rap music, extreme metal music, violent computer games and a perceived increase in violent films. Christian concerns are also prominent on things such as Harry Potter, Dungeons & Dragons.4. The Internet is said to be the demise of common knowledge, and people come to use search engines, rather than memorize things5. Such things have been said before about the printing press!
- A few generations ago, prim and proper Americans were horrified by such evils as rock & roll (complete with references to sex!), fantastical (and violent) comic books, jazz music and black music in general. Jazz music and rock'n'roll destroyed souls and damaged people, apparently.
- The printing press, alongside music, plays and games, has received a large share of these types of concerns:
- "In one of his last poems, published in 1850, Wordsworth opined that the infantility of illustrated newspapers - the first tentative steps towards the multimedia of today - would drive us back to "caverned life's first rude career" [...] and he felt that the endless influx of news from daily papers would incite us to a level of unbearable restlessness"4.
- In the 15th century CE the printing press was said to endanger the ability of humankind to think straight, and retain a working memory. It would destroy general knowledge, they said, wrongly, out of fear of new forms of information flows.5
- 2,400 years ago similar concerns surrounded the popularization of writing. Concerns were embodied in an Egyptian tale about the god of magic, Thoth, who invented writing. A horrified Earthly king exclaims that it will mean the demise of wisdom and truth as "they will not need to exercise their memories".5
- In antiquity, Greek wise men debated the perils of Greek stage plays, thinking that the way violence and drama passed as entertainment would undermine Greek culture3. Nowadays anyone with knowledge of Greek plays is considered a true academic geek, and not deemed likely to have destroyed his own character by exposing himself to them, even though the sex and violence is as central as in modern youth culture.
Many elements of youth entertainment have been sternly denounced by seniors as precipitating a violent demise of society, including jazz, heavy metal and violent video games. In all cases, such predictions have been wrong. Shakespeare's plays (like Greek classics) are full of violence, murder, suicide, drink, etc, yet we have accepted that enjoying Shakespeare does not predispose young adults to violence in real life. Perhaps this is because the types of people who are stereotyped as digging the classics are not the types of poverty-stricken children that are stereotyped as being involved in violent crime.
The high-and-mighties of society subconsciously take an approach that is so simplistic it somehow appeals. If the poorer elements of society are into certain types of music or culture, then, it must be that those elements of culture are causing their misbehaviour. Well, jazz, heavy metal, Greek plays and the written word have achieved two things: (1) They failed to cause an outbreak of violence as they became popular, and (2) they generally entered the mainstream. Violent videos games, just like violent plays and violent written works, will follow the same trend. These products should achieve a third thing in addition to the first two: (3) teaching worry-worts that it is rarely popular elements of youth culture that cause rebellious youthful behaviour. The cause of such behaviour is youthfulness.
To curb violence, wiser parental guidance is needed, not a morbid fear of the new culture that is brought into being along with a new generation. To remain intelligent, we need to not disparage the types of things the young are learning, but ask ourselves if our own concerns are still the correct concerns, and that we are not simply fearing what is new in culture.
3.3. The Role of the Press in Creating Hysteria
“Downmarket media publications reflect - and exaggerate - many of the fears of society itself. People want their lives to be part of historical drama. The millennium bug, worldwide pandemics, moral panics and fear that society is going wrong all betray humankind's neophobic reactions to progress and change. Newspaper editors pick on this fear and concoct alarmist stories from everyday events and statistics. Many editors and media owners have explained the usefulness of fear-mongering and sensationalism - it certainly sells more copy than balanced news. Fears become amplified and made more real by their appearance in headlines, creating a hysteria about a topic whereas in reality things are much better. Always remember that after thousands of hyped-up press warnings, on midnight of the 31st of December 1999, nothing happened.”"Modern Mass Media: The Bane of Human Cultural Evolution" by Vexen Crabtree (2009)
3.4. A General Fear of Genetics
3.4.1. Hollywood Hasn't Been Kind
Many new-science fears center on genetics. Horror films since the dawn of the b-movie have populated Western imaginations with stories of scientific experiments gone wrong, resulting in everything from monstrous chimeras such as Frankenstein and The Fly, to virus films such as 28 Days Later and I am Legend that see our geneticists accidentally turning everyone into mutated, murderous animals. Others such as Gattaca show us that in a world where genetic engineering exists, many elitists will consider themselves better than others. It is possible to find films that portray genetic engineering in a positive light. None come to mind, but, I saw at least one mentioned in an article once. The film didn't sound as exciting as Outbreak, The Twelve Monkeys or Stephen King's The Stand, which all include deadly engineered viruses threatening to kill everyone with horribly nasty colds. In the latter two of those films, nearly everyone dies. With the Incredible Hulk the engineers produce mixed results, but it is hardly the kind of engineering you would want offered at every hospital. Does this reflect humankind's healthy fascination with the advantages of new technology? I think not.
3.4.2. Irrational Fears
DNA researchers wish to compile comparisons of different human populations in order to trace our migratory history across the planet. Geneticists need more samples from indigenous populations. There is resistance from such people, they called one scheme a "Vampire Project" and some were worried that the samples would be used to create commercial drugs, which they consider to be "biopiracy"6. Such paranoid behaviour has stopped some research. It is hard to argue rationally against those who don't understand the basics of genetics especially when they do not wish to learn.
We can detect that same type of neophobia in countries where certain genetics industries and research methods are banned in their entirety, for example, some countries ban the importing of GM food, or stem-cell research. No-one thinks that individual human cells are alive and have rights (germ cells are just individual cells), yet the mass media have given the words 'stem cell research' such a bad press and religious activists have (obscurely) taken such a dislike to the concept that they have had a political effect, and managed to hinder and stop progress in an areas of research that they don't even understand the basics of.
3.4.3. Genetically Modified Food
My text on GM food talks not only about genetically altered food but also about the possibilities of growing meat in vats, rather than relying on animals. Pollsters have found that this idea has been met with general repulsion amongst the general populace. GM rice and potatoes are already commonplace and provide disease-resistant plants in larger quantities than is possible with natural rice. The safety of GM food has been studied extensively on massive scales. We have done much less testing on normal foods! Yet people fear what is new, more than they care to fear the unknown (or known) risks of what is accepted.
“People claim to be risk-averse when it comes to highly-tested synthetically grown meat, and genetically modified plant produce, which is known to be safe, but, continue to eat foods that are known to have bad risks. Cancer Research UK reports that "experts think that about a quarter of all cancer deaths are caused by unhealthy diets and obesity". It is not, therefore, that people mind the risks of meat grown in vats, but, that they don't like new foods. Therefore the opposition to synthetically grown meat is at least partially (or greatly, given the difference between normal risk-taking and GM risk-taking) a result of neophobia. The best course of action against neophobia is simply to slowly introduce the new foods, and let people get used to them over a generation or two.Another hint that something psychological is going on is the correlation between those in the Eurobarometer poll who said that Humans have a duty to protect nature, and those who think that we should grow synthetic meats so that we no longer have to slaughter (or keep) farm animals. There isn't a correlation between the two groups. Those who want to protect nature, and animal-rights activists, are largely against the growing of synthetic-natural meats. It would make sense that in order to protect nature, end farm captivity (even if not completely), and end animal slaughter, we should grow food that surpasses the need for those things. The fact that those people are against vat meat must mean that there are additional, psychological components to their opposition. You would think that, given the massive alterations to natural species we have engineered in cattle, and the painful and distorted lives that they lead as a result, would mean that we would wish to change the status quo in food production. Neophobia beats rationalism.”
3.5. Radiation
We saw that in zombie films and other hollwood products often used the idea of 'radiation', sometimes in a very simplistic manner, to sow the seeds of fear and horror. There exists as part of the fear of the invisible and the unknown, a fear of 'radiation'. This is despite the fact that the colours of the spectrum and radio signals are both forms of radiation, along with infra-red light (all are merely different frequencies on the electro-magnetic spectrum). This general fear of immaterial waves plays a part in the unfounded fears of mobile phones. Dr Frank Barnaby, a specialist on military technology and nuclear physics, points out that this fear is also a weapon in the hands of terrorists:
“'The true impact of a dirty bomb would be the enormous social, psychological and economic disruption [...]. It would cause considerable fear, panic and social disruption, exactly the effects terrorists wish to achieve. The public fear of radiation is very great indeed, some say irrationally so.'
The effect is that, in the dirty bomb, terrorists have a particularly dangerous weapon only if the media continue to mislead people into believing it is particularly dangerous.”
"Flat Earth News" by Nick Davies (2008)7
Nick Davies, a journalist and media analyst, warns that as long as the media publish sensationalist articles and news that is not checked for scientific accuracy, such fears will continue to be spread in a self-perpetuating cycle.
3.6. Greenwich Mean Time
Once many changes are made it can be hard to imagine what our original problem was with it. Where the advantages of progress speak for themselves, it is only time that we needed in order to become accustomed to them. For example, take the creation of a standard time which was clearly required so that everyone agreed on things like when meetings were and when trains ran. People opposed this move on the ground that it removed power from locals. Small thinking and the status quo bias are both elements of traditionalism, where people simply oppose change because they consider the old ways 'traditional' and therefore better than what is new.
“By 1894, Greenwich had acquired a peculiar significance: it not only marked 0° longitude, it also stood for the standardization of time. For much of the nineteenth century, different towns in Britain kept their own time, and travellers from one place to another would often have to reset their portable timepieces on alighting. But the development of the railways made it increasingly important to dispose of these local variations, and 1952 saw the introduction of a standard 'Railway Time', as it was called. Finally, in 1880, Parliament passed the Definition of Time Act, which introduced a universal time, this being defined by the time on the Observatory clock at Greenwich. This, as we might imagine, could well have induced in some quarters the same resentment as the idea of a single European currency does in others today.”
"Travels in Four Dimensions: The Enigmas of Space and Time" by Prof. Le Poidevin (2003)8
The centralisation of timekeeping led to riots; clocktowers were burned down and governors assaulted. It is hard to imagine what the problem was, but, that is because we are so accustomed to the advantages, and tradition has given way to practicality.
Another area of time-keeping deserves a mention. It was the Babylonians in their star-gazing, moon-charting enthusiasm who divided time into divisions based on the movements of the moon and sun. They divided hours and minutes into divisions of 60 because they had a base-60 numbering system9. Time has moved on, and we now have an international base-10 numbering system. Our recording of time should also change; such a change would have advantages in man-mangement, physics, engineering, etc, where we'd no longer need to mix numbers from base-60 and base-10 numbering systems.
A system of base-10 temporal measurements was introduced during the French Revolution, but it was abandoned in the face of almost universal terror at the thought of changing our cherished (but odd) system of dividing time into 60 seconds, 60 minutes, 24 hours, 7 days, 4 weeks and 12 months. An example will highlight the issue: If a strut is sinking at the rate of 1mm per second, how far does it sink in a day? With our current Babylonian system, the calculation is horrendous. In a base-10 system, it would be easy: 10 seconds per minute, times 10 minutes per hour, times 10 hours per day is 1000mm. Unfortunately, such a rational move is not on the horizon, and the mere thought of it fills people with dread. This is only a footnote though, because I imagine much of the dread comes from the quantity of hard work required to recalibrate and reprogram pretty much everything modern, rather than from genuine neophobia.
3.7. Military and Warfare Issues
3.7.1. Wearing Desert-Coloured Uniforms
To wear green camouflage (greens) in Europe and deserts in the desert is so much common sense that it hardly seems worth saying. But the introduction of camouflaged uniforms, despite all the obvious advantages, was once a hot-topic, with the opposition warning that the demise of the British Empire was imminent if we stopped wearing red uniforms. Once again, neophobia provides excuses and emotions that are way out of sync with the practical ideas being proffered by reformers, developers, and in this case, military strategicians. Check it out:
“During a series of colonial wars in the nineteenth century, the British Army gradually changed the colour of its soldier's uniforms from the traditional scarlet to khaki [but] the innovation was sharply resisted. Regiments who were still dressed in scarlet sneered at their transformed colleagues, disgustedly calling them 'khakis' (the word was well-known to be a 'native' one, the Urdu term for the colour of dust or mud). [...] The public, too, had a scandalized sense that it was no longer being properly protected. Thus in 1892 a columnist in The Pall Mall Gazette wrote in some alarm, "Khaki [...] tends to promote slovenliness". [...]Scarlet uniforms were habitual. They were normal. People were used to them. 'Business as usual' always tends to seem more practical, more realistic, than these fanciful new schemes we're not used to. So scarlet was what made the public feel safe.”
Dr Mary Midgley (2007)10
'Feeling safe' rather than thinking safe is the warm-cuddly feeling of the known good, the status quo. It blinds people to the disadvantages of the present and even the surest improvements are resisted on account of them being new. Such deplorable Human behaviour is easy to spot in retrospect but it is very difficult to prove where neophobia is active today. In the context of defense, let us discuss one topic that certainly seems to fit the bill:
3.7.2. Combined European Defence
"Uniforce: An International Military Force" by Vexen Crabtree (2008)
Despite the advantages of pooled military defence, there is much public concern about things such as combined European defence, even though the advantages far outweigh the theoretical disadvantages. Because it is big, and new, there is much opposition to it even though the status-quos in international defence are widely acknowledged to be broken. One political and military theorist light-heartedly compares this to the Brits' fear of the Germans winning the World Cup:
“It is a truth universally acknowledged, at least in Great Britain, that there is no chimera more appalling than the notion of a European Defence. Possibly the only thing more disturbing to a British sensibility is the - it is hoped, only marginally more likely - spectre of the Germans winning the World Cup. True, the European Union's present efforts at establishing a Common Security and Defence Policy leave much to be desired.”Constanze Stelzenmuller (2006)11
Media coverage of the ESDP (common European defence policy) has been entirely negative, despite the commendation of senior military experts and diplomats in Europe. In the future, when a European or International military force exists, historians will look back and puzzle over what our problems were with its creation, just like we puzzle over why townspeople were so against the creation of standard national time ('railway time'), enshrined into law in 1880.
3.8. Trains
“In Victorian times, it was anticipated that going through a dark tunnel in a train at high speed (30 mph) would be such a shocking experience that people would come out the other side irreversibly damaged. [...] Railway journeys and tabloid newspapers have not had the dire effects that were predicted.”Prof. Raymond Tallis (2007)4
4. Religion's Role in Neophobia
We have already mentioned above that the status-quo bias and small-thinking on a local scale rather than a global one, are both elements of traditionalism. Religion has long been a champion of traditional ways of acting and thinking, and it is often religious institutions that are the last to accept change. This has proven true in matters concerning the ending of slavery, the ending of discrimination against homosexuals, gender equality and the adoption of new scientific theories (like the fact that the planets orbit the sun, the big bang theory and evolution). Religions come to codify and ossifize human practices especially when such practices are under threat from progress and change. Religious activists and communities tend to become very entrenched in their positions against progress. In his book on genetics, Prof. Green bemoans the fact that the USA is falling behind in genetics research because of the political clout of the religious:
“At the same time that genomic science and reprogenetic medicine are rapidly advancing, the United States is in an era of biomedical and bioethical retreat. Appealing to the conservative religious base, President George W. Bush has all but shut down aid for reproductive health initiatives around the world and crippled federal support for stem cell research in this country."”"Babies by Design: The Ethics of Genetic Choice" by Ronald M. Green (2007)12
I have described many of these battles more fully elsewhere:
- "Christianity v. Astronomy: The Earth Orbits the Sun!" by Vexen Crabtree (2006)
- "Traditional Religions and the Slave Trade: Abolition and Promotion" by Vexen Crabtree (2003)
- "The Peacock vs. the Ostrich - Religious Behaviour and Sexuality" by Vexen Crabtree (2008)
- "Religion Versus Womankind" by Vexen Crabtree (2007)
5. Spotting and Preventing Neophobia
5.1. Bostrom and Ord's Reversal Test
There is a test that can be employed to ascertain areas where neophobia was (and is) prevalent: Bostrom and Ord's reversal test. If we fear changes in the future and say that they should not obtain, then, we should look at what advances have already been made. For example in the last 100 years, life expectancy in the West has improved by a dozen years, and so has average IQ. We find no problem with cosmetic surgery to improve looks (it is a profitable industry), for example, even while people say that modifying genes to improve looks would cause an unfair divide between haves and have-nots.
“Status quo bias permeates much of the thinking about genetic technologies. [...] The current life span is perfectly acceptable, whereas age extension raises frightening possibilities. The present range of human IQs is fine, but improvements look dangerous. [...] In each of these cases, the reversal test forces us to ask such questions as "Would it be better if we reduced average human IQ today across the board by fifteen points?" and "Would it be better if we banned reconstructive surgery for cleft palate, or cosmetic rhinoplasty for people who are troubled by their noses?" If the answer to these questions is no, we have to ask why we find the status quo satisfactory but modest improvements so worrisome.”
"Babies by Design: The Ethics of Genetic Choice" by Ronald M. Green (2007)13
It takes a few moments of thought to see how the Reversal Test applies, but if only it was taught at school in some kind of common-sense class, we would see that entire populations come to see their subconscious neophobic reactions for what they are. So, to test: Think of a current advance and imagine reversing it. Should we degrade food production so that we produce less food with more vulnerability to disease? Should we end cosmetic surgery or sports skill that is due to expensive advanced technology? If not, then why do we oppose further advances in these fields? Another test: If we oppose something new due to unknown risks, then, should we give up all other known risky behaviour, such as those of sports? The reversal test reveals if the "risk averse" argument or other arguments are the true forces behind opposition to various advances that affect society.
5.2. The Scientific Method
Opposition to new ideas is a natural human weakness. The intellectual methods that are best employed to reduce the effects of human error on thought are those associated with science. All ideas and theories are debated in science, so that everything is challenged by new evidence or ideas. But many new ideas are wrong, so new theories are also challenged. When it works it is good although you also get neophobic reactions amongst scientists (who are humans, after all). The scientific method, which is concentration on rationality, often allows logic to trump psychological dislike of new ideas. The skeptical thinker and mathematician Martin Gardner has explored what is, and isn't, science, and gives some examples:
“Einstein's work on relativity is the outstanding example. Although it met with considerable opposition at first, it was the whole an intelligent opposition. [... but] history contains many sad examples of novel scientific views which did not receive an unbiased hearing, and which later proved to be true. The pseudo-scientist never tires reminding readers of these cases. The opposition of traditional psychology to the study of hypnotic phenomena (accentuated by the fact that Mesmer was both a crank and a charlatan) is an outstanding instance. In the field of medicine, the germ theory of Pasteur, the use of anesthetics, and Dr. Semmelweiss' insistence that doctors sterilize their hands before attending childbirth are other well known examples of theories which met with strong professional prejudice.”
"Fads & Fallacies in the Name of Science" by Martin Gardner (1957)14
6. Conclusion
Mankind is afflicted with a psychological weakness: we fear change. Although this instinct may have been useful in our evolutionary past it now holds us back. In an age where we choose to indulge in many risky behaviours such as luxury food, sports, drugs, drink and smoking, it makes no sense for us to continue to shun advanced food GM technology, which undergoes extensive testing and is less risky than (mis)behaviours that we are already familiar with. Other technologies that were widely resisted include centralized time, rather than time being kept on a village-by-village basis (making train timetables an impossibility!), a fear that having daily news available to everyone would spark off a state of stressed panic about the world that would destroy society, and that if soldiers wore camouflagued uniforms in battle, then the public would no longer be protected properly. Hollywood continually produces horrors and science fiction dramas based around technology-gone-wrong. Thankfully there are methods we can employ to spot and prevent neophobic reactions, starting with raising general awareness. There have been untold numbers of proclamations that some new technology (such as cosmetic surgery) will destroy the fabric of society: what all these predictions have in common is that they have all been wrong.
