Behavioural traps

A behavioural trap is a situation in which an actor (or group) embarks upon an ostensibly promising course-of-action which later becomes undesirable and difficult to escape.

For example, ringing a company’s phone line and finding oneself being told by a recorded voice that one’s call is very important to the company, however, all of its operators are busy at present and that one’s call has been placed in a queue “and will be answered shortly”. Two minutes pass, three, then four without any indication that the call is about to be answered. After seven minutes the decision-maker resolves to hang up the next time the company’s phone-ad ‘loop’ starts again, yet the caller still wishes to speak to the company about an important matter and hanging up and ringing again means starting at “square one”. Then on the verge of putting the phone down the ad blurb cuts out and the ringing tone is heard. At last, a telephone ‘consultant’ to deal with the enquiry. But then: “beep, beep, beep” – the company's computer-assisted phone system has managed to cut off the call after close to ten minutes of fruitless waiting.

Situations such as the foregoing one are known as “social traps”, but because traps can be non-social as well as social, the more general term “behavioural trap” is more often applied.

There are acts of commission (traps) in which actors take potentially harmful courses-of-actions and acts of omission (counter-traps) involving the avoidance of potentially beneficial behaviour. There are five categories:

u	Time Delay:	An example of the former would be engaging in bad eating habits or smoking eventually building to obesity and diabetes or heart and lung disease, etc., while illustrations of the latter would be neglecting to exercise regularly or putting off seeing one’s doctor at the expense of later experiencing a costly health episode, e.g., a heart attack – actors are aware of ‘the downside’ but allow short term gratification to dominate over long term consequences;
u	Ignorance:	Unfortunate consequences in this case are not foreseen nor understood at the outset – a college student majors in a field which is then found disappointing or someone strives for a job of a very particular kind which once secured “falls flat” for the pursuer or likewise getting involved with a love partner, for example, living together and finding they are far less appealing than they seemed initially;
u	Investment:	A decision-maker is lead to make disagreeable choices through having made prior expenditures of time, money, or other resources – the “sunk costs” effect;
u	Deterioration:	Also known as “sliding reinforcer traps” in which what seemed to be a rewarding course-of-action transforms into a less reinforcing situation and then one having a punitive character. For example, the case of (many) heroin users: early exposure is enjoyable and exhilarating, then follows tolerance and larger doses to produce the “rush”, and subsequently the unpleasantness of withdrawal if the user does not continue to ‘imbibe’, in contrast to earlier feelings of euphoria;
u	Collective:	These are traps involving more than one actor and concern the pursuit of individual self-interests: for instance, if many people drive at the same time using the same route or arterial roads, rush-hour traffic is likely to be the result. In game theory Prisoner’s Dilemma can be seen as a collective trap.

Behavioural traps in the main are seldom permanent. Once a trap is escaped – we simply decide to hang up after waiting too long on hold or unhappy lovers break-up – in retrospect we would have liked to end the situation sooner. One way that entrapment† can be reduced or possibly avoided is to explicitly consider the complications which might arise and the costs of withdrawal before embarking on the venture. Not unlike counter-argument and considering the opposite to combat belief perserverance, when the costs of participation are made salient prior to making any commitment, entrapment becomes less likely.