His Master's Voice

The banner headline in yesterday's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette proclaims, “County, Consol strike $500M gas drilling deal.” Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald announced the terms of a contract that will allow Consol Energy to frack on county land—the 9,236 acres surrounding Pittsburgh International Airport. The $500 million figure is pure speculation. The county gets $50 million up front, but whether we get the remaining $450 million depends on how much gas is found and the future price of natural gas. But buried deep into this story is the most interesting part—when and where Fitzgerald chose to make this announcement: At a public hearing on proposed legislation to allow fracking at the Pittsburgh Airport. Fitzgerald's statement no doubt was a surprise to most of the overflow crowd of 300 citizens attending the meeting, especially to the 77 who registered to speak. It was particularly shocking to members of Marcellus Protest, a local anti-fracking group that showed up in force for the meeting. Guess what, citizens? Nobody cares what you have to say.

The article reminded me of an experiment.  Unfortunately, I've previously written about it, but it's particularly a propos here. Let me explain.

Social psychologists study two types of justice norms. Distributive justice refers to the fair allocation of social outcomes (rewards and punishments). Procedural justice refers to the fairness of the processes for arriving at those outcomes. For example, in a classroom, the distributive justice question is whether the grades fair. Procedural justice refers to questions like whether the tests are relevant to the course, or whether the teacher is free of bias. Even a good decision doesn't feel right if it was not arrived at by fair procedures.

One variable that influences people's procedural justice judgements is voice—the opportunity to express yourself or present your views. People who have some input into the decision process are more satisfied with a decision than others in the same circumstances who are not given a voice. This is especially true when the outcome goes against their self-interest. But this raises the possibility that authorities will attempt to manipulate citizens' satisfaction with a decision by trying to convince them that they have more influence than they actually do.

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How often have you heard this scenario? The county (or city, or state, or federal) government is about to make an important decision affecting all of our lives. But before they decide, they will travel around and hold several public hearings on the issue. Citizens who have an opinion on the question are invited to attend one of the meetings and present their views. The question of course is this: Are the decision-makers really listening to your views, or have they already made up their minds, and are they simply going through the motions of soliciting public input? Maybe public hearings are just another way of “cooling the mark out.” The right to be heard is, after all, not the right to be heeded.

Social psychologists Allan Lind and Tom Tyler have found that voice makes a difference in satisfaction even when it's objectively unlikely that the speakers will have much influence on the decision. To test the limits of this “voice effect,” Lind, Kanfer and Earley did a study in 1990 in which student participants were allowed to present evidence to a decision maker. For some of them, their presentation was delivered before authorities had decided what to do—the usual situation. But other participants were told that the decision had already been made, and then invited to present their views. A third group was given no voice. The results showed that people who got to speak before the decision were more satisfied than those who didn't speak until after the decision. But even under the absurd circumstance of presenting evidence after it was too late, participants with voice were more satisfied with the decision than those who were not given an opportunity to express their views. The authors had speculated that there might be a frustration effect leading to more dissatisfaction with the decision in the after condition, but there was not.

Before this study, the accepted explanation for the voice effect was that people optimistically believed they might persuade decision makers to accept their point of view. The Lind study suggests that people also value voice for self-expressive reasons. Maybe getting to present your views is an indication that you are respected by the community, although you might think that self-respect would be reduced by the knowledge that the intended audience is not paying any attention. Are people really that easily fooled by manipulations of voice? Maybe all authorities have to do is pretend to listen to our views and we are more satisfied with their decisions.

Even a casual newspaper reader can't help but notice that the timing of this announcement was a rude and arrogant gesture on Fitzgerald's part. His statement was followed by pro-fracking speeches by three Consol executives and a parade of elected officials. I'm told that those people who came to present the case against fracking were furious. To their credit, they resisted the impulse to fling feces at Fitzgerald. Even though it took more than an hour before the first citizen got to speak, they politely played their part in this theatre of the absurd, delivering their prepared speeches even though it was futile. This can be partially justified by the fact that the county council has not yet ratified the decision, although approval is almost certain.

I don't mean to imply that the members of Marcellus Protest were ever naïve enough to think they could convince the county not to drill on airport land. I also don't mean to suggest that they are in any way “satisfied” with the decision. These are well-informed, committed activists, whose views are not going to be turned around by one incident. They are more likely to show a frustration effect than Lind's participants. In fact, I'd be surprised if this experience doesn't have some effect on their cynicism about government and their willingness to participate in future public hearings.

Judging from my email box, the Pittsburgh area is awash in public hearings. Does all of this activity translate into more democratic decision-making? One way of looking Thursday's events is that Rich Fitzgerald let his side down—his side being his fellow politicians. He has laid bare their guilty secret for everyone to see. Public hearings are a sham. They are just a way of keeping the suckers occupied, while the real decisions are made behind closed doors.