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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name

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Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. In it's Saturday.

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Speaker 1: Time to head into the old vault for a classic

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Speaker 1: episode of the show. This one originally aired February and

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Speaker 1: it's part two of our series about overconfidence. All right,

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Speaker 1: let's let's just dive right into it. Welcome to Stuff

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Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind, a production of I Heart Radios

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Speaker 1: How Stuff Works. Hey, you, welcome to Stuff to Blow

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Speaker 1: Your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick,

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Speaker 1: and we're back with part two of our discussion of

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Speaker 1: over confidence. That's right. If you did not listen to

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Speaker 1: the previous episode, do go back and listen to that episode,

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Speaker 1: because we're gonna lay the ground work. We're going to

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Speaker 1: discuss over confidence in hubrists and mythology in human histories,

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Speaker 1: and then get into the psychology of it. What various

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Speaker 1: psychological studies have revealed and continue to reveal about the

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Speaker 1: nature of over confidence and how we can divide this

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Speaker 1: sort of a morphous concept of over confidence out into

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Speaker 1: categories that can be more easily studied and understood. That's

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Speaker 1: right now. In the last episode, One of the main

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Speaker 1: things we talked about was this huge new review of

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Speaker 1: the scientific literature on something known as the better than

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Speaker 1: average effect, which is the tendency for people to rate

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Speaker 1: themselves as better than average with respect to their peers

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Speaker 1: on all kinds of stuff. One classic example is that

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Speaker 1: something like nine three percent of people think they're a

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Speaker 1: better than average driver. So if you're if you're listening

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Speaker 1: to this as you drive, eyes back on the road,

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Speaker 1: and make sure you use this turn signals, turn signals, stays,

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Speaker 1: save lives, turn signals. Let other drivers and pedestrians know

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Speaker 1: what you intend to do. Even if you think you're

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Speaker 1: a great driver, drive like you're less good than you are,

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Speaker 1: and it will make you a better driver. Drive like

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Speaker 1: you can't see all the other cars and pedestrians around you,

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Speaker 1: because sometimes you cannot drive like you're driving a murder weapon,

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Speaker 1: because potentially you are. It's quite true, all right now.

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Speaker 1: One of the things we talked about in the last

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Speaker 1: episode was a paper from seventeen by Don Amore and

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Speaker 1: Derek Schatz called The Three Faces of Overconfidence, which which

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Speaker 1: actually broke over confidence down into three distinct categories of

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Speaker 1: of bias or misperception, and uh. And we we talked

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Speaker 1: about those a little bit last time. We're going to

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Speaker 1: be exploring more of what that paper had to say,

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Speaker 1: and it's critiques of overconfidence research specifically with reference to

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Speaker 1: these three types of overconfidence, and as a brief refresher,

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Speaker 1: the three types are overestimation, overplacement, and over precision. Overestimation

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Speaker 1: is thinking that you're better than you are, and this

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Speaker 1: would be with reference to some kind of, uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: objective measure out in the world. So if you think

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Speaker 1: that you are taller than you are, you know, if

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Speaker 1: you think that you can jump higher than you can,

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Speaker 1: if you think that you would get a better score

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Speaker 1: on a test than you actually could, that's overestimation. The

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Speaker 1: next one, over placement, is similar, but instead it's comparing

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Speaker 1: yourself with other people. So the better than average effect

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Speaker 1: would be an example of overplacement. It's, you know, thinking

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Speaker 1: you are better than average compared to your peers at

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Speaker 1: some task. Or it would be thinking that you know

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Speaker 1: that you work harder than other people, or thinking that

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Speaker 1: you are smarter than other people. Of course, with the if,

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Speaker 1: it's over confidence meaning that those are not actually accurate assessments.

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Speaker 1: And then finally the other one would be over precision,

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Speaker 1: which is being too sure that you know the truth. Again,

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Speaker 1: this this might be called epistemic over confidence. It's just

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Speaker 1: being too certain that your beliefs are correct. Now, to

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Speaker 1: get into more in chats is paper from. One of

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Speaker 1: the questions that they address is what actually drives some

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Speaker 1: of these different effects as as they are manifested. So

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Speaker 1: they start with overestimation. What causes us to say I

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Speaker 1: think we would get a better score on a test

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Speaker 1: than we do, to think we have more money in

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Speaker 1: the bank than we do. A common answer that people

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Speaker 1: give to this is the idea of wishful thinking. It

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Speaker 1: would feel good if this were true, therefore I believe

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Speaker 1: it right. Uh. The authors don't think that this explanation

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Speaker 1: is very plausible, and they offer several problems with it,

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Speaker 1: and we can interrogate these, maybe disagree with them as

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Speaker 1: we go on. But first of all, they say, you know,

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Speaker 1: self delusion is demonstrably maladaptive. For example, a tendency toward

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Speaker 1: wishful thinking about the safety of kissing sharks so with

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Speaker 1: tongue is not a trait that the environment will tend

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Speaker 1: to select For people overconfident about their academic abilities, will

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Speaker 1: tend not to study and actually do worse. People who

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Speaker 1: believe themselves invulnerable will take risks that sometimes get them killed.

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Speaker 1: This might seem obvious, but there is actually plenty of

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Speaker 1: research on this. I mean, people who are overconfident about

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Speaker 1: their abilities do face a lot of downsides when those

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Speaker 1: abilities are put to the test. Yeah, I mean, one

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Speaker 1: example from literature that comes to mine is that of Macbeth,

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Speaker 1: who believes himself protected by prophecy um and then of

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Speaker 1: course uh snuffs it because exactly. But then again, I think, okay,

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Speaker 1: so it is true that these people will face a

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Speaker 1: lot of downside, But then again, people do engage in

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Speaker 1: self destructive, self deluded behavior all the time. This is

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Speaker 1: a common feature of human life. Yeah, I mean, for instance,

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Speaker 1: we were just recently talking about the placebo effect on

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Speaker 1: our movie episode where we talked about the fly and

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Speaker 1: about the possibility that the placebo effect is basically due

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Speaker 1: to uh, you know, this innate tendency towards self delusion

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Speaker 1: that may very well be adaptive in at least in

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Speaker 1: this scenario where yeah, we we benefit from being able

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Speaker 1: to believe something is going to work and and uh

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Speaker 1: and and and experiencing at least a small physical benefit

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Speaker 1: from it, like a small curative benefit from it. And

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Speaker 1: then um, you know, I also can't help but think that,

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Speaker 1: you know, self delusion entails far more than just over confidence.

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Speaker 1: It also entails all manner of paranoia. And there is

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Speaker 1: a strong case for the adaptive nature of say, making

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Speaker 1: a type one error in cognition false positive, the belief

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Speaker 1: that the rustle in the tall grass is that of

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Speaker 1: a tiger when it's not, because if you make the

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Speaker 1: type two uh are you're more likely to be eaten

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Speaker 1: by the tiger? Right? Right? Yeah, having accurate information about

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Speaker 1: the world is actually very useful, and having inaccurate information

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Speaker 1: can kill you. Yeah, but but I'm not so much

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Speaker 1: you know, trying to disagree with the maladaptive self delusion

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Speaker 1: argument that we mentioned earlier, but but rather, you know,

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Speaker 1: to point out that the human experiences is rife with

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Speaker 1: self delusions. So might a dash of overconfidence, even in

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Speaker 1: the form of overestimation, served to balance out this alchemy

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Speaker 1: of you know, of our perception of reality. For example,

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Speaker 1: so you have a karaoke singer, and granted karaoke is

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Speaker 1: very low stakes, but you could involve of social embarrassment,

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Speaker 1: which you could fear would lead to ostracism, and that's

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Speaker 1: actually one of the most powerful negative motivators on human behavior, right.

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Speaker 1: But again, karaoke is also one of these things where

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Speaker 1: like sometimes it's cool to do it badly. So this

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Speaker 1: is not a perfect example, but so you have a

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Speaker 1: kara karaoke singer that imbibes in a little liquid courage

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Speaker 1: before taking the microphone, as most karaoke participants are are

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Speaker 1: are wont to do. Uh, but yeah, they get a

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Speaker 1: little liquid courage because they know they don't have the

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Speaker 1: greatest voice in the world. And then they feel a

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Speaker 1: little awkward getting up there, but but they know that

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Speaker 1: a little bit of booze induced over confidence might help matters.

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Speaker 1: I think you're exactly right there, and this this is

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Speaker 1: funny to start here because I think while the authors

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Speaker 1: make tons of good points, this is one of the

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Speaker 1: ones they make that I might disagree with the most.

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Speaker 1: I think that there are antagonistic adaptations in human behavior.

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Speaker 1: One pressure might favor having an accurate picture of the world,

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Speaker 1: assessing things in a clear and accurate way, while a

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Speaker 1: cross pressure favor self deception, especially self deception in the

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Speaker 1: form of overconfidence. For example, you might be more likely

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Speaker 1: to survive if you have accurate assessments of your own abilities,

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Speaker 1: but you might be more likely to take big risks

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Speaker 1: with potentially big rewards if you overestimate your abilities or

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Speaker 1: self delusional. Over confidence could be adaptive because it helps

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Speaker 1: us persuade or even deceive other people about our worth. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: You ultimately you have to you have to believe in

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Speaker 1: yourself if you know other people are not going to

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Speaker 1: believe in you for you, right right. I mean we

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Speaker 1: we talked in the last episode about how it's probably

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Speaker 1: not a coincidence that you really often notice over confidence

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Speaker 1: in people who occupy high status leadership roles. How they

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Speaker 1: get there. I mean, it's not hard to imagine the

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Speaker 1: overconfidence help to them get to that point. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: it's uh sometime it's a fun, sometimes terrifying exercise to

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Speaker 1: like if you if you engage with people like this

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Speaker 1: and then when you realize, oh, they're just really overconfidence.

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Speaker 1: They don't they're they're not to say they're not skilled,

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Speaker 1: but when you realize unless they're not, sometimes they're not.

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Speaker 1: But sometimes you really you realize, oh, there there is

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Speaker 1: this gap between ability and uh and and and what

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Speaker 1: they're they're saying they're going to deliver on, or what

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Speaker 1: they are estimating the future will consist of. Yeah, I mean,

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Speaker 1: it is kind of shocking how often in life you

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Speaker 1: will suddenly come to a realization that, you know, the

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Speaker 1: boss or the leader or whatever's main skill is b

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Speaker 1: essing like that they can just go out there and

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Speaker 1: wing it in a way that you would be too

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Speaker 1: timid and reserve to do. Right now, this idea of

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Speaker 1: you know, accurate assessments playing into our our own abilities,

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Speaker 1: I couldn't help but think of the film Butch casting

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Speaker 1: the Sundance Kid in this scenario, because it really as

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Speaker 1: it relates to two specific points in the film. One

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Speaker 1: is the whole would you make that jump if you

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Speaker 1: didn't have to scenario where they're being tracked, they're being hunted,

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Speaker 1: and they've come to this, uh, this this cliff overlooking

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Speaker 1: this river, and they realize that if they jump, if

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Speaker 1: they jump off this cliff and they land in that

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Speaker 1: river and they don't die, they'll get away because the

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Speaker 1: stakes are such that those pursuing them will not following them.

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Speaker 1: They will not make that jump if they don't need to.

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Speaker 1: Um So, so so there's there's that, and then at

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Speaker 1: the very end there's kind of a going out the

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Speaker 1: old fashioned way guns ablazing scenario where they're cornered, they're

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Speaker 1: going to slowly be killed and they decided to just

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Speaker 1: go for it, to just bust out shooting and just fight. Right. So,

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Speaker 1: so the incentives, like the evolutionary incentives on a brain

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Speaker 1: generating accurate pictures of the world versus self deluded over confidence,

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Speaker 1: those could very well be just the contrast between a

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Speaker 1: low risk, low reward strategy versus a high risk, high

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Speaker 1: reward strike, right, yeah, so yeah, the first example definitely

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Speaker 1: high risk, high reward, Like it was pretty much their

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Speaker 1: only their best option for survival at that point, and

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Speaker 1: they took it, and in the film they survive. At

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Speaker 1: the end of the film, it's pretty much implied that

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Speaker 1: they die, but but at the same time, it's it

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Speaker 1: still seems to be their best option, if not their

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Speaker 1: best option for surviving. It's kind of at least like

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Speaker 1: the psychological best option. You know, we're we're gonna stay

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Speaker 1: in here and die like rats, or are we gonna

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Speaker 1: you know, just burst out there and uh, you know

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Speaker 1: die like heroes in a film that is named after them.

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Speaker 1: You know, man, that's a great movie. I want to

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Speaker 1: go back, and why I haven't seen it? I remember

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Speaker 1: except the end. I mean, the ending is kind of

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Speaker 1: a downer, but uh but yeah, it's it's it's surprisingly

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Speaker 1: sweet for a for a violent outlaw movie. Yeah, it's

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Speaker 1: a good one. And you know, I mentioned him Inbeth

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Speaker 1: earlier in the whole idea of you know, draping himself

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Speaker 1: in prophecy and using that to to to to pump

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Speaker 1: himself up. But that doesn't bring up bring to mind

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Speaker 1: the rule of religion and all of this, you know,

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Speaker 1: I mean, certainly a lot of the things that religion

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Speaker 1: can do to your estimation of ability or you know, uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, you can revolve around you know, the survivability

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Speaker 1: of the soul for example, pull you know, and like

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Speaker 1: what will happen if I act a certain way in life? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and I think there could possibly be cross pressures going

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Speaker 1: the same way with that, I mean that that there

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Speaker 1: are some evolutionary drawbacks and some some advantages to it, right.

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Speaker 1: And then of course that's not to say that religious motivations, uh,

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Speaker 1: you know exist free of social of course. I guess

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Speaker 1: you know, there's going to be a rich interplay between

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Speaker 1: those and that's you know, that's something that comes up,

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Speaker 1: for instance, in UM when you look at studies of say,

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Speaker 1: suicide bombers. You know where on one hand, you can

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Speaker 1: look at it and just go with the simple scenario

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Speaker 1: die doing this act then they'll be rewarded in the afterlife.

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Speaker 1: But then behind that there's a whole social scenario as

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Speaker 1: well of other humans, you know, telling them that this

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Speaker 1: is the thing to do, etcetera. Yeah, motivations are are

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Speaker 1: a rich stew of many different influences. I mean it's

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Speaker 1: usually hard to nail down a single inciting incident or

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Speaker 1: cause that lead people down a path in life. And

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Speaker 1: in fact, I think a lot of times even when

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Speaker 1: people do that with themselves and say this was the

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Speaker 1: reason I became or whatever I did whatever, I think

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Speaker 1: a lot of times they're over some they're they're wrong

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Speaker 1: about themselves. So basically self delusion, we're all just houses

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Speaker 1: of cards. I'm just ready to be knocked down at

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Speaker 1: any point. Well, but there's another way of putting it. Now.

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Speaker 1: One thing you and I could be getting wrong here

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Speaker 1: is if we're talking properly about self delusion or some

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Speaker 1: other type of bias or like misperception in the brain,

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Speaker 1: because the authors here they're saying, okay, self delusion specifically,

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Speaker 1: maybe self delusion implies that there's there's a sort of

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Speaker 1: transformation going on somewhere in the brain, like the brain

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Speaker 1: gets accurate information about the world and then just somehow

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Speaker 1: presents it to the conscious mind in a skewed way.

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Speaker 1: The authors share think that, especially if you're talking about

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Speaker 1: wishful thinking, is the brand of self delusion, uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: getting false perceptions about the world in or to feel better.

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Speaker 1: They think that doesn't really work from a like unconscious

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Speaker 1: mind to conscious mind model, because emotions and moods also

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Speaker 1: seem to emerge from the unconscious mind, not from the

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Speaker 1: conscious mind. But then there's another thing they go to,

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Speaker 1: which is that they argue the empirical evidence for true

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Speaker 1: self deception in overestimation it's actually kind of weak and

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Speaker 1: kind of mixed. Why would this be, Well, first of all,

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Speaker 1: they say, it's hard to separate true self deception from

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Speaker 1: attempts to deceive others, including the researchers. So how can

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Speaker 1: you tell when somebody truly overestimates their own traits or

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Speaker 1: abilities versus they just tell you that they think their

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Speaker 1: traits or abilities are better than they are. In a

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Speaker 1: lot of cases, both would manifest equally as outward over confidence. Now,

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Speaker 1: you can come up with some methodologies and some tests

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Speaker 1: to try to get around this, Like you can make

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Speaker 1: people bet sums of money that would where the outcome

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Speaker 1: of the bet would be dependent on how good they

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Speaker 1: actually are at a task or something. But in a

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Speaker 1: lot of cases, they say, it's hard to tell the

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Speaker 1: difference between true self deception and just attempts to deceive

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Speaker 1: other people. Another thing they point out is that you

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Speaker 1: don't actually have to be deceiving yourself to overestimate your abilities.

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Speaker 1: You could be genuinely completely ignorant of the fact that

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Speaker 1: you're not as good as you think you are. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And here's one place that the famous Dunning Krueger effect

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Speaker 1: comes in. Now you may have heard about the Dunning

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Speaker 1: Krueger effect, but very short sketch on it. Of course,

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Speaker 1: overlaps with a lot of what we're talking about today.

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Speaker 1: Participants less skilled in a task or subject area can

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Speaker 1: be prone to show even greater overestimation of their abilities

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Speaker 1: in that skill or subject area. So with some skills,

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Speaker 1: the worst you are, the more you overestimate your awesomeness. Now,

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Speaker 1: why why on earth would this be Well, the authors

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Speaker 1: here mentioned this could just simply come from your low

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Speaker 1: skills providing you with a or frame of reference. You

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Speaker 1: don't know enough about this task or skill or subject

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Speaker 1: area to even understand how much you don't know, So,

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Speaker 1: like the Dunning Kruger effect would show not self deception

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Speaker 1: but genuine ignorance. You lack enough information to understand how

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Speaker 1: bad you're failing. Like I think a good example of

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Speaker 1: this is you know, you read you you read one

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Speaker 1: theory about some phenomena and uh, and it can be

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Speaker 1: rather convincing. It can be so convincing that you think, well,

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Speaker 1: this is it. It made a great case. But if

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Speaker 1: you don't, if if you don't actually look at some

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Speaker 1: of the other theories out there or look at uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, some sort of if you look at writings

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Speaker 1: or or pieces that actually compare them, or do some

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Speaker 1: sort of meta analysis, then you don't really have a

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Speaker 1: proper frame of reference or even like sort of I

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Speaker 1: wouldn't even say like nothing like a perfect frame of reference,

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Speaker 1: but even say like a healthy frame of reference. Yes,

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Speaker 1: you can go so like, you read one article about

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Speaker 1: a subject and then you're an expert, and then you

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Speaker 1: start reading more and you realize like, oh wait a minute,

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Speaker 1: you know there's so much I don't understand that your

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Speaker 1: estimation of your own expertise drops sharply after Yeah, like

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Speaker 1: you might realize, oh, well, there are other theories, or

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Speaker 1: you might realize, oh well, this was just one person's

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Speaker 1: summary of this particular theory. And oh and then on

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Speaker 1: top of that, perhaps they had a particular acts to

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Speaker 1: grind in writing it, etcetera. Yeah, that that's a great example.

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Speaker 1: I mean not to say that you should doubt everything

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Speaker 1: you read, but I mean, yeah, you should have. You

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Speaker 1: should you should have healthy doubt, not you know, not denialism,

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Speaker 1: but but you know, just be aware that you don't

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Speaker 1: know everything, and you should be especially suspicious when you

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Speaker 1: have dipped your toes into a subject and now feel

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Speaker 1: that you fully understand it. And we say that as

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Speaker 1: a professional toe dippers. Uh. Now, finally they point out

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Speaker 1: that the empirical evidence for wishful thinking itself in general

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Speaker 1: as a psychological phenomenon. They say, this is not actually strong. Uh,

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Speaker 1: if if there were strong evidence for wishful thinking. Wouldn't

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Speaker 1: it be the case that more desirable outcomes would be

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Speaker 1: more strongly believed, And they say, no, studies that try

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Speaker 1: to test this out do not find this to be

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Speaker 1: the case. It's not the case that the more you

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Speaker 1: want something, the more you believe it to be true.

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Speaker 1: And there are only a few types of scenarios where

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Speaker 1: there's any evidence of this at all, such as scenarios

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Speaker 1: where all outcomes are equally likely, like a dice roll

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Speaker 1: or something. Now that is interesting to think of in

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Speaker 1: terms of dungeons and dragons, were frequently one is either

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Speaker 1: making an attack or doing some sort of attempting some

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Speaker 1: sort of act that requires a skill check. And I

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Speaker 1: find myself doing this. You'll, you go up there and

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Speaker 1: you begin to explain what your character is going to do,

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Speaker 1: as if you hit that natural twenty that's kind of

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Speaker 1: the Yeah. So I find myself engaging in a lot

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Speaker 1: of that level of overconfidence with my character because ultimately

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Speaker 1: it all comes down to the roll of the dice,

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Speaker 1: you know, unless I'm trying to you know, leap off

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Speaker 1: of the democ organ's head or something that is going

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Speaker 1: to be extremely difficult because they're going to be additional

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Speaker 1: numerical you know values. Uh, you know added is attracted

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Speaker 1: from the attempt. You know, ultimately it's still gonna be

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Speaker 1: one to twenty one being h you know, a pretty

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Speaker 1: much complete fail. Uh. You know that's gonna be the

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Speaker 1: one where you slip and stab yourself with your own sword,

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Speaker 1: or it's gonna be that natural twenty which is going

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Speaker 1: to be you know, the wonder hit where you do

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Speaker 1: extra damage. That is a fantastic example. I I was

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Speaker 1: trying to think of cases where I thought I really

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Speaker 1: did engage in wishful thinking, and I couldn't think. I'm

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Speaker 1: sure I do sometimes, but yeah, they say it's not

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Speaker 1: actually as common as people think it is. And here's

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Speaker 1: maybe one case. I think in Dungeons and Dragons, I

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Speaker 1: have yet to meet a player or be a player

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Speaker 1: that does not engage in will wish will thinking. Every

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Speaker 1: time you roll the dice, like nobody, nobody rolls that

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Speaker 1: dice and it says, all right, this is how I'm

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Speaker 1: gonna fall off this table or this is how I'm

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Speaker 1: going to fall into the next trap, and you know,

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Speaker 1: and skewer myself on a stake. No, we want the

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Speaker 1: best outcome and we we have it in our mind

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Speaker 1: before the dice puts this in our place. Now, another

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Speaker 1: thing that the authors here bring up is that overestimation itself.

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Speaker 1: Remember again, that's just thinking that you are better than

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Speaker 1: you are in some way in terms of abilities or

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Speaker 1: traits or something. Um that this actually has a mixed

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Speaker 1: evidential record. It's not always the case that we overestimate

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Speaker 1: ourselves on all qualities or tasks. It's more the case

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Speaker 1: for some things in particular. And they give a couple

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Speaker 1: of examples of things where there really is a ton

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Speaker 1: of evidence for consistent overestimation. One is something you brought

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Speaker 1: up in the last episode, Robert, the planning fallacy. There

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Speaker 1: is really good evidence that people consistently overestimate how fast

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Speaker 1: they'll be able to get things done or complete a

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Speaker 1: project of some kind. And this is especially true if

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Speaker 1: the project is difficult and novel. So like, if I

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Speaker 1: I try to, you know, I put together some complex

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Speaker 1: thing for you to do that's hard and you've never

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Speaker 1: done it before, you are really likely to massively underestimate

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Speaker 1: how much time it's going to take you. Right if

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Speaker 1: you're like, well, you know, I'm not a handyman, but

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Speaker 1: I think I'm gonna install this sink myself and then

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Speaker 1: you watch a weekend just vanish. Yeah, I know that feeling.

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Speaker 1: Another one that they site is the illusion of control.

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Speaker 1: People pretty consistently overestimate how much control they, well they

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Speaker 1: will have over future outcomes, even things that that they

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Speaker 1: should understand are basically random. Right. You see this financially

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Speaker 1: in business wise a lot of times where someone will

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Speaker 1: have they think they have a clear idea of like

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Speaker 1: how things are going to flow, but they're they're just

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Speaker 1: not taking into account all the factors they cannot control,

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Speaker 1: and say the economy or or or or just the

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Speaker 1: industry that they're a part of. But they're kind of

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Speaker 1: they're acting, they're making choices based on sort of like

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Speaker 1: a not even a best case scenario, but sort of

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Speaker 1: like a standard scenario. You know, Yeah, I think I

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Speaker 1: know what you mean. Like they're they're not counting on

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Speaker 1: the storm, and they're also not counting on the wind

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Speaker 1: to completely die away, and that's how they're basing, you know,

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Speaker 1: their their estimate of how long it's going to take

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Speaker 1: to sail across the sea. Oh yeah, I mean that

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Speaker 1: that's another thing, like we there's actually a name for this.

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Speaker 1: I've forgotten it at the moment, but maybe I'll call

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Speaker 1: it to mind in a second. But uh, it's the

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Speaker 1: the assumption that the future will be like the present.

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Speaker 1: Maybe it's called the continuation fallacy or um. But now

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Speaker 1: there's one more thing that they bring up with respect

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Speaker 1: to overestimation specifically, uh, and this is a standard finding

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Speaker 1: that applies to a lot of the research on overestimation.

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Speaker 1: It's called the hard easy distinction or the hard easy effect.

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Speaker 1: And UH, this one is interesting because we'll see some

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Speaker 1: variations with it in other types of overconfidence. But it

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Speaker 1: goes like this, we are more likely to overestimate our

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Speaker 1: abilities on hard tasks and underestimate our abilities on easy ones.

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Speaker 1: So again, like the hard project comes up with the

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Speaker 1: planning foul. See, you massively underestimate how much time it's

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Speaker 1: going to take you to do that hard, complex novel thing,

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Speaker 1: but then you might overestimate how much time it's going

429
00:23:09,280 --> 00:23:12,159
Speaker 1: to take you to do something that's a common easy task.

430
00:23:12,960 --> 00:23:14,800
Speaker 1: I guess that the main example that's coming to mind

431
00:23:14,800 --> 00:23:18,399
Speaker 1: on this one would be the scenario where driving across

432
00:23:18,480 --> 00:23:22,040
Speaker 1: town are going to a particular destination takes less time

433
00:23:22,040 --> 00:23:23,840
Speaker 1: than you think it will and then you show up

434
00:23:23,920 --> 00:23:27,000
Speaker 1: like fifteen minutes early yea or or worse yeah. And

435
00:23:27,200 --> 00:23:30,359
Speaker 1: the authors here have some explanations for how exactly this

436
00:23:30,400 --> 00:23:31,800
Speaker 1: is working that we'll get to an abid who we

437
00:23:31,800 --> 00:23:33,760
Speaker 1: take a break, Yes, we should, and when we come

438
00:23:33,760 --> 00:23:40,119
Speaker 1: back we will continue our journey through over confidence. Thank alright,

439
00:23:40,119 --> 00:23:42,680
Speaker 1: we're back. All right. So we've been talking about this

440
00:23:42,720 --> 00:23:46,120
Speaker 1: paper about over confidence, but the three types of overconfidence

441
00:23:46,200 --> 00:23:49,320
Speaker 1: by shots and more. We were just talking about overestimation,

442
00:23:49,400 --> 00:23:51,479
Speaker 1: the belief that you're better than you are, especially with

443
00:23:51,560 --> 00:23:55,240
Speaker 1: respect to some kind of objective measure or independent measure.

444
00:23:55,600 --> 00:23:57,440
Speaker 1: And so we want to move on to the next

445
00:23:57,520 --> 00:24:00,760
Speaker 1: type of overconfidence they talk about, which is over placement.

446
00:24:00,840 --> 00:24:03,719
Speaker 1: And again this is different from overestimation because this is

447
00:24:04,160 --> 00:24:07,439
Speaker 1: thinking that you're better than you are with respect to

448
00:24:07,520 --> 00:24:11,240
Speaker 1: other people and judging yourself compared to others. Now, the

449
00:24:11,280 --> 00:24:14,920
Speaker 1: authors have some methodological critiques of some of the literature here,

450
00:24:14,920 --> 00:24:17,680
Speaker 1: but they acknowledge there's a lot of evidence for overplacement,

451
00:24:18,000 --> 00:24:21,200
Speaker 1: citing the better than average effect in all its beastly forms,

452
00:24:21,240 --> 00:24:23,600
Speaker 1: Like in the other paper that we talked about that

453
00:24:23,680 --> 00:24:27,240
Speaker 1: was you know, recently found to be extremely robust. Uh

454
00:24:27,440 --> 00:24:30,120
Speaker 1: they've got some quibbles about methodology and some of these

455
00:24:30,119 --> 00:24:34,040
Speaker 1: studies like using ambiguous scales or measures. Robert, you were talking,

456
00:24:34,080 --> 00:24:36,320
Speaker 1: I think in the last episode about you know how

457
00:24:36,359 --> 00:24:38,600
Speaker 1: some of these types of things like uh, you know,

458
00:24:38,680 --> 00:24:43,440
Speaker 1: how people rate themselves in terms of attractiveness or intelligence

459
00:24:43,560 --> 00:24:46,919
Speaker 1: or something. These can of course suffer from ambiguous criteria,

460
00:24:47,200 --> 00:24:51,480
Speaker 1: right yeah, or sometimes just straight up unfair criteria, racist criteria, um,

461
00:24:51,600 --> 00:24:56,120
Speaker 1: misogynistic criteria, etcetera. Well, yeah, it absolutely has all those

462
00:24:56,160 --> 00:24:59,360
Speaker 1: negative effects. I mean, I think overplacement is like it's

463
00:24:59,400 --> 00:25:01,399
Speaker 1: behind a lot of the worst types of prejudices that

464
00:25:01,440 --> 00:25:04,800
Speaker 1: make themselves known. But even if you're just like looking

465
00:25:04,800 --> 00:25:07,840
Speaker 1: at what is the quality you're trying to measure, you know,

466
00:25:08,359 --> 00:25:11,679
Speaker 1: attractiveness or something like that, that there's usually not like

467
00:25:11,880 --> 00:25:14,320
Speaker 1: a way of rating that is it's all based on

468
00:25:14,359 --> 00:25:18,159
Speaker 1: these kind of ambiguous subjective judgments. One great example of

469
00:25:18,200 --> 00:25:20,880
Speaker 1: this is something that we've brought up several times already,

470
00:25:20,960 --> 00:25:25,960
Speaker 1: like the driving example. So Vinson in one did a

471
00:25:26,000 --> 00:25:30,720
Speaker 1: study where he discovered that nine percent of American drivers

472
00:25:30,840 --> 00:25:35,720
Speaker 1: rated themselves above the median and driving ability. Obviously, whatever

473
00:25:35,880 --> 00:25:40,240
Speaker 1: criterion you use, it's impossible for to be above the media,

474
00:25:40,240 --> 00:25:43,400
Speaker 1: and it would have to be you know, like, um,

475
00:25:43,440 --> 00:25:46,280
Speaker 1: the majority can be above average, but the majority cannot

476
00:25:46,359 --> 00:25:48,960
Speaker 1: be above the median. And the authors point out this

477
00:25:48,960 --> 00:25:51,720
Speaker 1: would be more impressive if it were more specific, because

478
00:25:52,119 --> 00:25:55,080
Speaker 1: due to this problem with like ambiguous scales or measures,

479
00:25:55,400 --> 00:25:59,400
Speaker 1: anybody could technically have their own definition of what makes

480
00:25:59,400 --> 00:26:02,080
Speaker 1: a good drive. Ever, so you could be answering that

481
00:26:02,200 --> 00:26:04,640
Speaker 1: thinking like, well, there are things that I do well

482
00:26:04,760 --> 00:26:07,639
Speaker 1: when I drive, and maybe they're different from what somebody

483
00:26:07,640 --> 00:26:09,879
Speaker 1: else thinks that they do well when they drive, and

484
00:26:09,920 --> 00:26:13,280
Speaker 1: that's their criterion, right, I mean, your your definition of

485
00:26:13,320 --> 00:26:15,560
Speaker 1: being a good driver could just be I did not

486
00:26:16,040 --> 00:26:17,400
Speaker 1: you know, I wasn't in a wreck on the way

487
00:26:17,440 --> 00:26:19,520
Speaker 1: to work this morning, you know. Or or it could

488
00:26:19,560 --> 00:26:22,840
Speaker 1: be I get the places I need to go fast, yeah,

489
00:26:22,880 --> 00:26:25,800
Speaker 1: like in those are those are are definitely you know,

490
00:26:25,920 --> 00:26:29,040
Speaker 1: not necessarily the same vision of good driving. Or I

491
00:26:29,080 --> 00:26:32,480
Speaker 1: look really cool when I do it, you know. Uh.

492
00:26:32,520 --> 00:26:34,760
Speaker 1: There's another thing they bring up which is interesting, which

493
00:26:34,800 --> 00:26:39,359
Speaker 1: is the role of self selection in increasing the apparent

494
00:26:39,520 --> 00:26:43,280
Speaker 1: prevalence of overconfidence in the real world. So an example

495
00:26:43,320 --> 00:26:47,480
Speaker 1: would be like this, On average, more overconfident people are

496
00:26:47,560 --> 00:26:50,639
Speaker 1: likely to apply for jobs just sort of by definition, right,

497
00:26:51,400 --> 00:26:54,880
Speaker 1: more overconfident people are likely to start businesses, to run

498
00:26:54,920 --> 00:26:59,639
Speaker 1: for office, So we're we're exposed to more of these people,

499
00:27:00,200 --> 00:27:03,480
Speaker 1: and this could lead to us thinking that their confidence

500
00:27:03,600 --> 00:27:06,760
Speaker 1: level is more represented in the general population than it

501
00:27:06,840 --> 00:27:09,720
Speaker 1: actually is. Oh yeah, you turn onto television. It's what

502
00:27:09,800 --> 00:27:13,439
Speaker 1: it's almost exclusively overly confident people. That's true. Yeah, So

503
00:27:13,480 --> 00:27:17,840
Speaker 1: if you just look at like business leadership, politics, celebrities,

504
00:27:18,760 --> 00:27:20,919
Speaker 1: all this, you're gonna see. I think you will see

505
00:27:20,960 --> 00:27:24,479
Speaker 1: in general way more over confidence than you just will

506
00:27:24,720 --> 00:27:27,680
Speaker 1: talking to your friends and relatives and co workers. Now

507
00:27:27,720 --> 00:27:30,199
Speaker 1: here's a really interesting thing. Remember we talked about the

508
00:27:30,320 --> 00:27:34,359
Speaker 1: hard easy effect or the easy heart effect with overestimation,

509
00:27:34,359 --> 00:27:39,520
Speaker 1: where people tend to overestimate their abilities on hard jobs

510
00:27:39,560 --> 00:27:44,760
Speaker 1: and underestimate their abilities on easy jobs. Apparently, for overplacement,

511
00:27:45,400 --> 00:27:48,200
Speaker 1: it's there's also an easy heart effect, but it's in

512
00:27:48,240 --> 00:27:54,520
Speaker 1: the exact opposite direction. With overplacement, you overplace yourselves relative

513
00:27:54,680 --> 00:27:58,520
Speaker 1: We overplace ourselves relative to others on easy, common tasks

514
00:27:58,880 --> 00:28:02,960
Speaker 1: and underplace our selves relative to others on difficult, unusual,

515
00:28:03,200 --> 00:28:06,240
Speaker 1: or rare ones. So again, what would be some examples

516
00:28:06,280 --> 00:28:09,399
Speaker 1: of this? Uh, you think you're in the ninety percentile

517
00:28:09,480 --> 00:28:12,080
Speaker 1: of drivers, but really you're in the fort This is

518
00:28:12,119 --> 00:28:16,000
Speaker 1: an easy, common task. On the other hand, people think

519
00:28:16,080 --> 00:28:20,680
Speaker 1: that they are less likely than others to win difficult competitions. Uh.

520
00:28:20,720 --> 00:28:23,840
Speaker 1: Studies show that when there's a teacher that decides to

521
00:28:24,160 --> 00:28:27,560
Speaker 1: make an exam harder and graded on a curve, students

522
00:28:27,600 --> 00:28:30,880
Speaker 1: expect their grades to be worse than others, even when

523
00:28:30,920 --> 00:28:33,040
Speaker 1: there's common knowledge that there will be a curve, So

524
00:28:33,080 --> 00:28:36,240
Speaker 1: as the test gets harder, students perceived that they will

525
00:28:36,280 --> 00:28:40,920
Speaker 1: do worse relative to other classmates. That's kind of interesting. Uh.

526
00:28:40,960 --> 00:28:43,840
Speaker 1: They point out that people believe they are worse jugglers

527
00:28:43,920 --> 00:28:47,200
Speaker 1: than other people. They believe that they are less likely

528
00:28:47,280 --> 00:28:49,960
Speaker 1: to win the lottery than other people. Again a difficult,

529
00:28:50,040 --> 00:28:54,240
Speaker 1: rare thing, uh, And that they here's here's a very

530
00:28:54,240 --> 00:28:57,600
Speaker 1: interesting version. Just in terms of ages. People believe they

531
00:28:57,600 --> 00:29:01,400
Speaker 1: are less likely than other people to of past one hundred,

532
00:29:01,800 --> 00:29:04,560
Speaker 1: But they also think they're more likely than other people

533
00:29:04,640 --> 00:29:08,440
Speaker 1: to live past seventy Interesting. Well, of course, both of

534
00:29:08,440 --> 00:29:10,440
Speaker 1: those kind of depends on where you are in the

535
00:29:10,480 --> 00:29:13,280
Speaker 1: age spectrum when you're making that estimation, you know, because

536
00:29:13,280 --> 00:29:16,200
Speaker 1: you could be I mean, I mean, but apparently it's

537
00:29:16,200 --> 00:29:19,440
Speaker 1: true of all age. Yeah, but also your quality of life, right,

538
00:29:19,440 --> 00:29:22,240
Speaker 1: I mean for some people that prospect of living two hundred,

539
00:29:22,760 --> 00:29:25,840
Speaker 1: depending on where you are healthwise, that might be terrifying.

540
00:29:25,920 --> 00:29:29,080
Speaker 1: That might be it might be wishful thinking that you'll

541
00:29:29,120 --> 00:29:31,920
Speaker 1: expire sooner than that. Uh, or it could be the

542
00:29:31,920 --> 00:29:35,160
Speaker 1: other way around. You know. Um, what kind of explanations

543
00:29:35,160 --> 00:29:38,280
Speaker 1: are they they're throwing out? Yeah, this was interesting? So yeah,

544
00:29:38,320 --> 00:29:40,840
Speaker 1: why do we fail in opposite directions here? Depending on

545
00:29:40,880 --> 00:29:44,480
Speaker 1: whether we're imagining our performance against objective measures versus relative

546
00:29:44,520 --> 00:29:47,560
Speaker 1: to others and the author's site solutions from some of

547
00:29:47,640 --> 00:29:52,280
Speaker 1: Moore's previously previous work with other authors, They write this quote.

548
00:29:52,520 --> 00:29:55,880
Speaker 1: If people make any errors estimating how well they've done

549
00:29:56,080 --> 00:29:58,840
Speaker 1: or will do, then it stands to reason they're more

550
00:29:58,880 --> 00:30:01,680
Speaker 1: likely to over us to make a low score and

551
00:30:01,840 --> 00:30:05,360
Speaker 1: more likely to underestimate a high score. That's the herd

552
00:30:05,440 --> 00:30:09,040
Speaker 1: easy effect. As long as people have more uncertainty about

553
00:30:09,160 --> 00:30:12,520
Speaker 1: other scores, they will tend to make even more regressive

554
00:30:12,640 --> 00:30:16,040
Speaker 1: estimates of others than of self. The consequence would be

555
00:30:16,120 --> 00:30:20,040
Speaker 1: that they overestimate others even more than themselves on difficult

556
00:30:20,080 --> 00:30:23,000
Speaker 1: tasks and come to believe that they are worse than others.

557
00:30:23,400 --> 00:30:26,160
Speaker 1: The opposite would hold true for easy tasks. People would

558
00:30:26,240 --> 00:30:30,040
Speaker 1: underestimate others more than themselves and wind up believing that

559
00:30:30,080 --> 00:30:33,040
Speaker 1: they are better than others. So that took me a

560
00:30:33,080 --> 00:30:34,840
Speaker 1: minute to get my head around, but then I finally

561
00:30:34,880 --> 00:30:37,440
Speaker 1: made sense of it. So when you're not sure how

562
00:30:37,520 --> 00:30:39,680
Speaker 1: you will do it something, as we're always you know,

563
00:30:39,800 --> 00:30:42,840
Speaker 1: not sure, there's a ton of uncertainty in life, or

564
00:30:43,000 --> 00:30:46,000
Speaker 1: you're not sure how others will do they're simply more

565
00:30:46,080 --> 00:30:50,000
Speaker 1: room for possibility to guess high if your performance is

566
00:30:50,040 --> 00:30:52,920
Speaker 1: likely to be low, and more room to guess low

567
00:30:53,080 --> 00:30:55,920
Speaker 1: if your performance is likely to be high. And this

568
00:30:55,960 --> 00:30:59,480
Speaker 1: applies to both the self and other people. Since we

569
00:30:59,560 --> 00:31:02,960
Speaker 1: know even less about other people than we do about ourselves,

570
00:31:03,200 --> 00:31:05,960
Speaker 1: we're going to spend more time guessing wrong in these

571
00:31:06,080 --> 00:31:09,480
Speaker 1: vast over and under zones for other people, depending on

572
00:31:09,560 --> 00:31:11,960
Speaker 1: what type of task it is. Now we're going to

573
00:31:12,080 --> 00:31:15,880
Speaker 1: talk about over precision from this two thousand seventeen study. Now,

574
00:31:15,920 --> 00:31:18,760
Speaker 1: over precision again is that that's like having way more

575
00:31:18,800 --> 00:31:22,440
Speaker 1: confidence than you should about what you believe to be true.

576
00:31:22,840 --> 00:31:24,440
Speaker 1: So I could ask you, you know, I could ask

577
00:31:24,480 --> 00:31:26,320
Speaker 1: you to answer a question that I could ask you

578
00:31:26,440 --> 00:31:30,080
Speaker 1: how confident you are that your answer is correct. Uh.

579
00:31:30,160 --> 00:31:33,920
Speaker 1: And the authors here right quote results routinely find that

580
00:31:34,080 --> 00:31:39,520
Speaker 1: hit rates inside confidence intervals are below fifty percent, implying

581
00:31:39,560 --> 00:31:42,720
Speaker 1: that people set their ranges too precisely, acting as if

582
00:31:42,760 --> 00:31:46,360
Speaker 1: they're inappropriately confident that their beliefs are accurate. So if

583
00:31:46,360 --> 00:31:49,960
Speaker 1: you take a quiz, you say you're more than confident

584
00:31:50,040 --> 00:31:52,360
Speaker 1: on average about your answers, and you're actually more like

585
00:31:52,480 --> 00:31:56,040
Speaker 1: fifty percent correct on average. This is something that's been

586
00:31:56,080 --> 00:31:59,280
Speaker 1: found a bunch of times. It's quite clear that there's

587
00:31:59,360 --> 00:32:03,360
Speaker 1: tons of over precision in human behavior. The authors have

588
00:32:03,360 --> 00:32:06,719
Speaker 1: a few critiques about like common research paradigms that are

589
00:32:06,800 --> 00:32:09,600
Speaker 1: used to study this. One example is they say, you know,

590
00:32:09,720 --> 00:32:11,920
Speaker 1: it may be that normal people don't have a very

591
00:32:11,960 --> 00:32:14,959
Speaker 1: solid understanding of how to use confidence intervals, so there

592
00:32:14,960 --> 00:32:18,320
Speaker 1: have been other ways of trying to measure it. But however,

593
00:32:18,440 --> 00:32:21,520
Speaker 1: the authors here believe that over precision is the most

594
00:32:21,640 --> 00:32:26,240
Speaker 1: pervasive form of over confidence. You find it absolutely ever everywhere,

595
00:32:26,280 --> 00:32:29,520
Speaker 1: even in experts talking about their own subject matter. I

596
00:32:29,520 --> 00:32:31,160
Speaker 1: think that's come up on the show before that, I

597
00:32:31,160 --> 00:32:33,960
Speaker 1: don't remember when. After this, the authors here turned to

598
00:32:33,960 --> 00:32:36,760
Speaker 1: the question UH, a question we talked about a little before,

599
00:32:36,840 --> 00:32:40,800
Speaker 1: could over confidence actually be useful? Like? How do why

600
00:32:40,800 --> 00:32:44,280
Speaker 1: does it make sense for a brain to be over confident? Uh?

601
00:32:44,320 --> 00:32:47,440
Speaker 1: And they talk about explanations in two main categories, intra

602
00:32:47,640 --> 00:32:52,200
Speaker 1: personal and interpersonal. Uh. The authors generally think the evidence

603
00:32:52,240 --> 00:32:56,640
Speaker 1: for the interpersonal explanations, the explanations and how it works

604
00:32:56,680 --> 00:33:00,320
Speaker 1: on other people are stronger than the intra personal ones,

605
00:33:00,360 --> 00:33:03,880
Speaker 1: though there could could be some good intrapersonal ones. For example,

606
00:33:04,320 --> 00:33:07,400
Speaker 1: you know, maybe over confidence doesn't just make you feel good, it,

607
00:33:07,560 --> 00:33:11,040
Speaker 1: as we hypothesized earlier, makes you more likely to take

608
00:33:11,160 --> 00:33:14,160
Speaker 1: risks that can pay off big. Yeah. Well, I mean,

609
00:33:14,200 --> 00:33:16,400
Speaker 1: for instance, to come to to go to like a

610
00:33:16,400 --> 00:33:22,160
Speaker 1: predator prey scenario, like one is reminded of the you know,

611
00:33:22,200 --> 00:33:25,640
Speaker 1: how effective your average predator is. You know they are

612
00:33:25,680 --> 00:33:29,520
Speaker 1: going to fail a lot. And granted, a leopard is

613
00:33:29,560 --> 00:33:34,040
Speaker 1: not really subject to human you know, over confidence or

614
00:33:34,120 --> 00:33:37,320
Speaker 1: under confidence, but certainly, if you if you if you

615
00:33:37,360 --> 00:33:39,840
Speaker 1: look at a human scenario, if you look at human hunters,

616
00:33:40,480 --> 00:33:42,640
Speaker 1: you know it, it's certainly a situation where it would

617
00:33:42,640 --> 00:33:46,800
Speaker 1: pay to be overconfident. Uh, to a certain degree. Yeah,

618
00:33:46,800 --> 00:33:49,360
Speaker 1: I think you can find some analogies of confidence and

619
00:33:49,400 --> 00:33:52,120
Speaker 1: over confidence and animals like, you know, how likely are

620
00:33:52,160 --> 00:33:55,400
Speaker 1: you to try to take down prey animal that you're

621
00:33:55,480 --> 00:33:58,320
Speaker 1: very unlikely to succeed against what you know would provide

622
00:33:58,320 --> 00:34:00,120
Speaker 1: you with a lot of meat and energy of you

623
00:34:00,160 --> 00:34:02,720
Speaker 1: do right. Of course, the reverse of the other side

624
00:34:02,760 --> 00:34:04,280
Speaker 1: of that is that you would not need want to

625
00:34:04,280 --> 00:34:07,200
Speaker 1: be so overconfident you were going after prey that was

626
00:34:07,240 --> 00:34:09,919
Speaker 1: extremely likely to kill you if you try to bring

627
00:34:09,960 --> 00:34:12,879
Speaker 1: it down. Right. But the authors here they do think

628
00:34:12,920 --> 00:34:17,040
Speaker 1: that there's really good evidence for interpersonal benefits for over confidence.

629
00:34:17,560 --> 00:34:20,240
Speaker 1: One example would be all the empirical evidence that already

630
00:34:20,239 --> 00:34:24,080
Speaker 1: exists that just outwardly projecting confidence has all these benefits

631
00:34:24,080 --> 00:34:26,880
Speaker 1: affecting how other people see us. There are studies that

632
00:34:26,960 --> 00:34:31,240
Speaker 1: show that highly confident people are more persuasive, they're more influential,

633
00:34:31,560 --> 00:34:34,480
Speaker 1: they're perceived as more sexually attractive, they tend to get

634
00:34:34,520 --> 00:34:38,480
Speaker 1: promoted to positions of authority in groups um, and it's

635
00:34:38,520 --> 00:34:42,239
Speaker 1: possible that confidence is actually more important than competence in

636
00:34:42,280 --> 00:34:46,560
Speaker 1: determining who gets promoted to high status positions the author's

637
00:34:46,640 --> 00:34:49,640
Speaker 1: right quote. While a preference for confident leaders may make

638
00:34:49,680 --> 00:34:54,120
Speaker 1: sense if there's a correlation, however, weak between confidence and competence.

639
00:34:54,280 --> 00:34:58,160
Speaker 1: There is real risk in selecting over confident leaders. Well,

640
00:34:58,200 --> 00:35:00,560
Speaker 1: I mean because on one hand, you on a boss

641
00:35:00,680 --> 00:35:03,120
Speaker 1: that can say, you know, do their job and and

642
00:35:03,200 --> 00:35:06,640
Speaker 1: keep the company afloat and actually grow the business, etcetera,

643
00:35:06,680 --> 00:35:09,680
Speaker 1: all the various catchphrases. But you also want a boss

644
00:35:09,719 --> 00:35:11,640
Speaker 1: that you can kind of like you can you can

645
00:35:11,800 --> 00:35:13,920
Speaker 1: you can trust that they're doing their thing like they

646
00:35:14,000 --> 00:35:17,600
Speaker 1: seem confident. I guess they have their whole end of

647
00:35:17,640 --> 00:35:19,560
Speaker 1: it figured out, and maybe I can focus on my

648
00:35:19,640 --> 00:35:22,240
Speaker 1: own thing and not my own role in the company

649
00:35:22,280 --> 00:35:25,520
Speaker 1: without you know, freaking out about what's going to happen tomorrow. Well,

650
00:35:25,560 --> 00:35:28,600
Speaker 1: maybe in the business scenario we should pivot to talking

651
00:35:28,640 --> 00:35:32,000
Speaker 1: about the Icarus paradox. Oh, all right, we're gonna take

652
00:35:32,000 --> 00:35:33,640
Speaker 1: a quick break, but we'll be right back with more.

653
00:35:37,280 --> 00:35:39,759
Speaker 1: And we're back. So, Robert, you wanted to bring in

654
00:35:39,800 --> 00:35:44,080
Speaker 1: a concept from the business world about overconfidence, the Icarus paradox. Yeah,

655
00:35:44,239 --> 00:35:46,520
Speaker 1: And I'm as surprised as maybe some of you are

656
00:35:46,560 --> 00:35:49,319
Speaker 1: that I'm bringing in a something business wise, but it

657
00:35:49,360 --> 00:35:51,239
Speaker 1: caught my attention when I was looking for things on

658
00:35:52,120 --> 00:35:55,000
Speaker 1: for papers and so forth on over confidence, and also

659
00:35:55,160 --> 00:35:58,120
Speaker 1: looking at Greek mythology and so forth, because yeah, the

660
00:35:58,160 --> 00:36:02,400
Speaker 1: Acarus paradox invokes the story of Chris rather directly. And

661
00:36:02,440 --> 00:36:04,359
Speaker 1: I think it also makes sense at another level because

662
00:36:04,400 --> 00:36:07,080
Speaker 1: you know, we don't have gods uh so much anymore,

663
00:36:07,120 --> 00:36:11,800
Speaker 1: Like these are not the driving commanding forces in our world.

664
00:36:12,200 --> 00:36:16,239
Speaker 1: But we do have institutions, industries, global economies, and these

665
00:36:16,239 --> 00:36:19,000
Speaker 1: are not unlike the concepts of the gods. Right. You know,

666
00:36:19,040 --> 00:36:22,560
Speaker 1: they're sometimes lawful, sometimes chaotic entities that are likely to

667
00:36:22,640 --> 00:36:25,279
Speaker 1: destroy you if you question their authority or if you

668
00:36:25,960 --> 00:36:29,000
Speaker 1: you you turn against them. But anyway, I ran across

669
00:36:29,160 --> 00:36:32,920
Speaker 1: this interesting concept of the Acress paradox um. It was

670
00:36:32,960 --> 00:36:36,799
Speaker 1: devised by Canadian economist Danny Miller, and he points out

671
00:36:36,840 --> 00:36:40,839
Speaker 1: that businesses are often like Icarus in the myth They

672
00:36:40,840 --> 00:36:46,000
Speaker 1: start out confident and competent, they rise, but then they perish. Uh.

673
00:36:46,120 --> 00:36:48,440
Speaker 1: The The irony, he writes, is that many of the

674
00:36:48,480 --> 00:36:52,839
Speaker 1: most dramatically successful companies are prone to this exact sort

675
00:36:52,880 --> 00:36:56,520
Speaker 1: of failure. Uh. And and it doesn't in the business sense,

676
00:36:56,560 --> 00:37:00,560
Speaker 1: since businesses are sometimes less likely to they're more like

677
00:37:00,560 --> 00:37:03,120
Speaker 1: the gods. You know, they're they have downfalls, but there

678
00:37:03,120 --> 00:37:06,720
Speaker 1: may be they may very well be immortal. In some cases,

679
00:37:07,160 --> 00:37:09,240
Speaker 1: they're still alive. They're just chained to a rock getting

680
00:37:09,239 --> 00:37:12,560
Speaker 1: their liver pecked out by an eagle. Right for eternity.

681
00:37:12,600 --> 00:37:16,000
Speaker 1: You know, maybe they just declare multiple bankruptcies. Immortal declares

682
00:37:16,040 --> 00:37:18,680
Speaker 1: bankruptcy is a different thing than than a corporation doing it.

683
00:37:19,239 --> 00:37:22,000
Speaker 1: Um wait, what is that eagle. It's like a private

684
00:37:22,080 --> 00:37:26,080
Speaker 1: equity eagle. Yeah, the private equity eagle. Um yeah. He

685
00:37:26,080 --> 00:37:28,640
Speaker 1: mentioned several companies and discussing this, and and most of them,

686
00:37:28,680 --> 00:37:30,440
Speaker 1: I think that he was discussing, are still around, like

687
00:37:30,520 --> 00:37:34,320
Speaker 1: they have survived their downfalls. Uh but yeah, yeah. He

688
00:37:34,360 --> 00:37:36,720
Speaker 1: writes that the irony is that that many of these

689
00:37:36,840 --> 00:37:39,560
Speaker 1: dramatically successful companies are prone to these sort of failures.

690
00:37:39,560 --> 00:37:42,759
Speaker 1: And what's more, the very factors that drive success, when

691
00:37:42,760 --> 00:37:46,120
Speaker 1: taken to excess, are the factors that bring about decline.

692
00:37:47,200 --> 00:37:49,440
Speaker 1: So I think this is an interesting model to look at,

693
00:37:49,520 --> 00:37:51,640
Speaker 1: not only for the you know, because it's a just

694
00:37:51,719 --> 00:37:53,279
Speaker 1: a take on it from the business world, but I

695
00:37:53,320 --> 00:37:55,320
Speaker 1: think he can also serve as sort of a reflecting

696
00:37:55,360 --> 00:37:58,600
Speaker 1: pool for some of the individual concepts that we've discussed

697
00:37:58,640 --> 00:38:01,799
Speaker 1: already by placing them outside of the human psyche and

698
00:38:01,840 --> 00:38:04,319
Speaker 1: looking at them in the context of an organization or

699
00:38:04,320 --> 00:38:09,080
Speaker 1: a culture. So Miller wrote a book about this, The

700
00:38:09,160 --> 00:38:12,920
Speaker 1: Acarious Paradox. How exceptional companies bring about their own downfall,

701
00:38:13,280 --> 00:38:17,080
Speaker 1: New Lessons in the dynamics of corporate success, decline, and renewal.

702
00:38:17,120 --> 00:38:19,960
Speaker 1: I know you love a long title like that, um,

703
00:38:20,120 --> 00:38:24,200
Speaker 1: but I also I was mainly looking at his Business

704
00:38:24,520 --> 00:38:27,440
Speaker 1: Horizons article that he wrote on the subject, and he

705
00:38:27,480 --> 00:38:31,400
Speaker 1: summarizes a lot of the key points. So Miller identified

706
00:38:31,560 --> 00:38:37,719
Speaker 1: four key to trajectories in the richest to rags business scenario.

707
00:38:38,400 --> 00:38:41,800
Speaker 1: So the first one that he mentions is the focusing trajectory.

708
00:38:41,840 --> 00:38:46,880
Speaker 1: In this trajectory, the craftsman becomes the tinker. Quote firms

709
00:38:46,880 --> 00:38:54,080
Speaker 1: whose insular, technocratic monocultures alienate customers with perfect but irrelevant offerings.

710
00:38:54,120 --> 00:38:56,319
Speaker 1: So I guess in a scenario would be, you know,

711
00:38:56,800 --> 00:39:00,399
Speaker 1: the company that creates a really groundbreaking product, and then

712
00:39:00,480 --> 00:39:04,120
Speaker 1: all they do is tinker with that concept. All they

713
00:39:04,160 --> 00:39:07,960
Speaker 1: do is make adjustments to that concept, and eventually, like

714
00:39:08,120 --> 00:39:10,520
Speaker 1: somebody else is going to create a better widget or

715
00:39:10,560 --> 00:39:13,920
Speaker 1: a better you know, smartphone, or whatever the situation may be,

716
00:39:14,400 --> 00:39:16,640
Speaker 1: somebody else is going to take some some you know,

717
00:39:16,719 --> 00:39:21,440
Speaker 1: some wider swings next comes the venturing trajectory, and this

718
00:39:21,520 --> 00:39:25,120
Speaker 1: is by which builders become imperialist. And this one, I

719
00:39:25,160 --> 00:39:27,160
Speaker 1: think is the one that really has the smack of

720
00:39:27,239 --> 00:39:31,920
Speaker 1: overconfidence to it. In this trajectory, the strategy of building

721
00:39:32,120 --> 00:39:36,440
Speaker 1: feeds into over expansion. The goal of growth becomes grandeur,

722
00:39:36,880 --> 00:39:41,400
Speaker 1: and an entrepreneurial culture becomes one of the gamesman. A

723
00:39:41,480 --> 00:39:46,080
Speaker 1: divisionalized structure becomes fractured. And then on top of that

724
00:39:46,120 --> 00:39:49,319
Speaker 1: there's the the inventing trajectory. This is where you go

725
00:39:49,400 --> 00:39:53,040
Speaker 1: from pioneering to escapist. In this trajectory, innovation feeds into

726
00:39:53,120 --> 00:39:58,640
Speaker 1: high tech escapism. Science for society transforms into technological utopianism.

727
00:39:58,680 --> 00:40:01,319
Speaker 1: Research and development gives way to think tank culture, and

728
00:40:01,360 --> 00:40:05,439
Speaker 1: the overall culture goes from organic to chaotic. And then

729
00:40:05,600 --> 00:40:09,200
Speaker 1: he rounds us out with the decoupling trajectory from salesman

730
00:40:09,320 --> 00:40:15,280
Speaker 1: to drifter quote. Finally, the decoupling trajectory transforms salesman organizations

731
00:40:15,280 --> 00:40:19,520
Speaker 1: with unparalleled marketing skills, prominent brand names, and broad markets

732
00:40:19,840 --> 00:40:24,880
Speaker 1: into aimless, bureaucratic drifters whose sales fetish obscures design issues

733
00:40:25,080 --> 00:40:27,799
Speaker 1: and who produce a stale and disjointed line of me

734
00:40:27,920 --> 00:40:31,040
Speaker 1: too offerings. Okay, so that's the company that's more based

735
00:40:31,080 --> 00:40:34,279
Speaker 1: around marketing culture than around having a good product, right.

736
00:40:34,400 --> 00:40:36,960
Speaker 1: You know, thinking about these trajectories kind of reminds me

737
00:40:37,040 --> 00:40:40,520
Speaker 1: of the peaking in high school stereotype in life trajectories.

738
00:40:41,000 --> 00:40:43,040
Speaker 1: It's a stereotype, but there is some truth to it.

739
00:40:43,160 --> 00:40:45,880
Speaker 1: I think it's possible that too much success early on

740
00:40:45,920 --> 00:40:48,520
Speaker 1: in life can kind of corrupt a person, and can

741
00:40:48,560 --> 00:40:51,000
Speaker 1: kind of corrupt your work ethic, your ability to learn

742
00:40:51,080 --> 00:40:54,560
Speaker 1: from mistakes and mature. It's important for people to experience

743
00:40:54,600 --> 00:40:58,200
Speaker 1: both successes and failures early in life. Yeah, yeah, I

744
00:40:58,440 --> 00:41:00,360
Speaker 1: think so. It kind of comes act to what we

745
00:41:00,440 --> 00:41:05,160
Speaker 1: talked about looking at considering Aristotle's uh summary of hubrists

746
00:41:05,200 --> 00:41:07,640
Speaker 1: saying that the young and the rich were the most

747
00:41:07,680 --> 00:41:10,280
Speaker 1: likely to engage in it, and the idea that perhaps

748
00:41:10,320 --> 00:41:13,680
Speaker 1: in some scenarios, certainly there there are plenty of examples

749
00:41:13,680 --> 00:41:17,200
Speaker 1: of very wealthy people who got there through defeat, like

750
00:41:17,280 --> 00:41:20,400
Speaker 1: through learning the lessons of defeat. There are also examples

751
00:41:20,440 --> 00:41:23,400
Speaker 1: of of people who have you know, arguably maybe you know,

752
00:41:23,880 --> 00:41:26,759
Speaker 1: never suffered a true defeat like they have. They have

753
00:41:26,800 --> 00:41:30,600
Speaker 1: remains sort of man children, uh, kind of failed upward. Yeah,

754
00:41:30,680 --> 00:41:33,280
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. Um. And again we're dealing abroad

755
00:41:33,320 --> 00:41:36,000
Speaker 1: tropes here. But you know, to some extent, I think

756
00:41:36,000 --> 00:41:40,600
Speaker 1: it's useful to consider to consider these, um. But but

757
00:41:40,719 --> 00:41:42,920
Speaker 1: also I feel like it does get too into the

758
00:41:43,000 --> 00:41:47,320
Speaker 1: idea that that when we're dealing with the trajectory of

759
00:41:47,320 --> 00:41:51,439
Speaker 1: of the human life, you know, um, part of it

760
00:41:51,480 --> 00:41:54,480
Speaker 1: is perhaps comes down to just our ability to forecast

761
00:41:54,520 --> 00:41:56,880
Speaker 1: the future, our ability to make long to engage in

762
00:41:56,920 --> 00:42:00,440
Speaker 1: long term planning. Like we're as humans were generally not

763
00:42:00,520 --> 00:42:03,040
Speaker 1: as good about that. We're certainly not good about planning

764
00:42:03,040 --> 00:42:05,680
Speaker 1: beyond uh, you know, the scope of a human life.

765
00:42:05,719 --> 00:42:08,160
Speaker 1: But but even like beyond the scope of a of

766
00:42:08,200 --> 00:42:10,920
Speaker 1: a few years, we're better at the short term goals,

767
00:42:11,360 --> 00:42:14,640
Speaker 1: and it's only with considerable effort that we we get

768
00:42:14,640 --> 00:42:18,439
Speaker 1: better at considering long term goals. UM. So I think

769
00:42:18,440 --> 00:42:21,160
Speaker 1: that's important to keep in mind. And all of this now,

770
00:42:21,239 --> 00:42:23,320
Speaker 1: one thing that I think is also interesting in Miller's

771
00:42:23,320 --> 00:42:26,319
Speaker 1: writings is that he talks, he talks a bit about

772
00:42:26,400 --> 00:42:30,040
Speaker 1: over confidence, you know, as a symptom of underlying issues,

773
00:42:30,440 --> 00:42:34,479
Speaker 1: you know, as opposed to being like an intrinsic quality. Uh.

774
00:42:34,800 --> 00:42:39,640
Speaker 1: He writes, Unfortunately, configuration and synergy are usually attained at

775
00:42:39,640 --> 00:42:43,520
Speaker 1: the cost of myopia. Stellar performers view the world through

776
00:42:43,600 --> 00:42:47,640
Speaker 1: narrowing telescopes. One point of view takes over, one set

777
00:42:47,640 --> 00:42:51,640
Speaker 1: of assumptions comes to dominate. The result is complacency and

778
00:42:51,760 --> 00:42:54,920
Speaker 1: over confidence. And I think that plays into a lot

779
00:42:54,920 --> 00:42:58,080
Speaker 1: of what what we've we spoke about earlier. You know, Sorry,

780
00:42:58,120 --> 00:42:59,840
Speaker 1: I'm trying to make sense of it. Given that this

781
00:43:00,000 --> 00:43:02,279
Speaker 1: out the word synergy in it, I shouldn't know what

782
00:43:02,320 --> 00:43:04,880
Speaker 1: that means. By now I've purged it from my brain.

783
00:43:05,320 --> 00:43:07,880
Speaker 1: Oh okay, I see now, yeah, I'm looking at the quote. Okay,

784
00:43:07,880 --> 00:43:11,160
Speaker 1: so no, this is this is a very standard thing. Uh.

785
00:43:11,200 --> 00:43:15,160
Speaker 1: You know, if you have successfully hammered several nails in

786
00:43:15,480 --> 00:43:18,280
Speaker 1: everything and you've still got the hammer, everything really starts

787
00:43:18,320 --> 00:43:21,959
Speaker 1: to look like a nail, just because like, if you've

788
00:43:21,960 --> 00:43:25,440
Speaker 1: had success with the strategy in the past, you don't switch.

789
00:43:25,600 --> 00:43:27,920
Speaker 1: You just keep doing what you've done before, even if

790
00:43:27,960 --> 00:43:29,799
Speaker 1: it doesn't make sense anything like, yeah, this is the

791
00:43:29,920 --> 00:43:32,319
Speaker 1: this is what works, this is what our product is,

792
00:43:32,880 --> 00:43:35,400
Speaker 1: and this is what we're going to stick to. Um

793
00:43:35,560 --> 00:43:37,280
Speaker 1: and and then yeah, he talks a good bit about

794
00:43:37,520 --> 00:43:40,600
Speaker 1: to do about overconfidence as just a result of success

795
00:43:40,719 --> 00:43:44,600
Speaker 1: writing quote failure teaches leaders valuable lessons, but good results

796
00:43:44,640 --> 00:43:48,440
Speaker 1: only reinforce their preconceptions and tether them more firmly to

797
00:43:48,560 --> 00:43:53,319
Speaker 1: their tried and true recipes. Success also makes managers overconfident,

798
00:43:53,400 --> 00:43:56,239
Speaker 1: more prone to excess and neglect, and more given to

799
00:43:56,280 --> 00:43:59,520
Speaker 1: shape strategies to reflect their own preferences rather than those

800
00:43:59,560 --> 00:44:02,600
Speaker 1: of the cut stomers and uh, you know. He also

801
00:44:02,680 --> 00:44:05,920
Speaker 1: points to one of the key aspects of the Acreus

802
00:44:05,920 --> 00:44:11,000
Speaker 1: paradox being that overconfident, complacent executives extend the very factors

803
00:44:11,040 --> 00:44:14,920
Speaker 1: that contributed to success to the point where they cause decline.

804
00:44:15,280 --> 00:44:18,040
Speaker 1: So the thing that's working on, you know, the button

805
00:44:18,080 --> 00:44:21,160
Speaker 1: we're pushing that is leading to success, let's just really

806
00:44:21,239 --> 00:44:24,040
Speaker 1: jam that sucker. You're like the rat in the experiment

807
00:44:24,080 --> 00:44:27,960
Speaker 1: that keeps pushing the cocaine button. Yeah. So he summarizes

808
00:44:28,000 --> 00:44:30,880
Speaker 1: that there are really two aspects of the Acreus paradox.

809
00:44:30,960 --> 00:44:33,160
Speaker 1: One is the success can lead to failure via the

810
00:44:33,160 --> 00:44:36,239
Speaker 1: fostering of overconfidence and other factors. And then to the

811
00:44:36,320 --> 00:44:39,320
Speaker 1: aspects of a business that brings success can also hasten

812
00:44:39,400 --> 00:44:42,960
Speaker 1: failure or quote, the very causes of success, when extended,

813
00:44:43,239 --> 00:44:46,719
Speaker 1: may become the causes of failure. And as far as

814
00:44:47,120 --> 00:44:50,160
Speaker 1: you know ways to fight these transformations, because that's when

815
00:44:50,200 --> 00:44:52,520
Speaker 1: one question I had, It's like, it's just just the trajectory,

816
00:44:52,520 --> 00:44:55,759
Speaker 1: this is what happens. Like this is things can't just

817
00:44:55,800 --> 00:45:01,240
Speaker 1: go up forever and a business cannot just exist, you know, indefinitely,

818
00:45:01,320 --> 00:45:05,399
Speaker 1: Like things have to die, right, I mean, these corporations

819
00:45:05,400 --> 00:45:08,440
Speaker 1: are not like you mortals, but they are given to

820
00:45:09,000 --> 00:45:12,560
Speaker 1: life and death. They're not eternal. Uh and and he says,

821
00:45:12,760 --> 00:45:15,520
Speaker 1: he argues that there are ways to fight these transformations.

822
00:45:15,920 --> 00:45:20,320
Speaker 1: He suggests self reflection and intelligence gathering that guards against excess,

823
00:45:20,440 --> 00:45:24,600
Speaker 1: over confidence and irrelevance. And this this I think matches

824
00:45:24,640 --> 00:45:26,239
Speaker 1: up with what we've been talking about so far in

825
00:45:26,280 --> 00:45:29,640
Speaker 1: the individual level, like like if you think you're you're gracious,

826
00:45:29,680 --> 00:45:32,719
Speaker 1: like take a step back and and and uh and

827
00:45:32,719 --> 00:45:35,200
Speaker 1: and think in the question whether you know you actually

828
00:45:35,200 --> 00:45:37,080
Speaker 1: are to what extent you are? What else you could

829
00:45:37,080 --> 00:45:39,240
Speaker 1: be doing to ensure that that that you were actually

830
00:45:39,280 --> 00:45:42,319
Speaker 1: living up to your overestimation of self? If you think

831
00:45:42,320 --> 00:45:44,960
Speaker 1: it's true about yourself, prove it, prove it to you. Yeah,

832
00:45:45,000 --> 00:45:47,840
Speaker 1: I have to say Miller was a is a is

833
00:45:47,840 --> 00:45:49,719
Speaker 1: a really good writer about it. This because normally I'm

834
00:45:49,719 --> 00:45:54,120
Speaker 1: not interested in business culture type stuff like this. But

835
00:45:54,120 --> 00:45:55,640
Speaker 1: but he does a great job of like tying it

836
00:45:55,680 --> 00:45:59,320
Speaker 1: back into just the basic human scenario as well. Like

837
00:45:59,320 --> 00:46:02,720
Speaker 1: like he points out that excellence in any human endeavor,

838
00:46:02,760 --> 00:46:05,160
Speaker 1: be at arts or sports or what have you, you know,

839
00:46:05,160 --> 00:46:07,560
Speaker 1: it tends to come at a price. We cannot excel

840
00:46:07,680 --> 00:46:10,759
Speaker 1: at everything. We have to make sacrifices and choose what's

841
00:46:10,800 --> 00:46:13,520
Speaker 1: important in the middle of the road or a jack

842
00:46:13,560 --> 00:46:17,280
Speaker 1: of all trades approach is not going to lead to greatness,

843
00:46:17,719 --> 00:46:20,120
Speaker 1: you know, unless it's a story or some fable where

844
00:46:20,160 --> 00:46:26,040
Speaker 1: greatness is just thrust upon somebody, you know, Uh, there's

845
00:46:26,080 --> 00:46:28,640
Speaker 1: got to be some sort of a trade off there.

846
00:46:28,960 --> 00:46:30,719
Speaker 1: And he says it goes for the individual, but it

847
00:46:30,719 --> 00:46:33,720
Speaker 1: also applies to companies as well. You can only sharpen

848
00:46:33,800 --> 00:46:36,399
Speaker 1: your blade if you first realize that it is dull

849
00:46:36,480 --> 00:46:38,839
Speaker 1: and must be sharpened, you know, like if if you

850
00:46:39,000 --> 00:46:42,359
Speaker 1: if you believe yourself eternally and infinitely sharp, you're not

851
00:46:42,400 --> 00:46:44,680
Speaker 1: going to do the sharpening right. And it's interesting to

852
00:46:44,719 --> 00:46:46,680
Speaker 1: come back and think about the individual level and think

853
00:46:46,680 --> 00:46:49,880
Speaker 1: about over confidence in this scenario, like one like basic

854
00:46:49,920 --> 00:46:52,799
Speaker 1: trophy mentions is the idea of, say, you know, the

855
00:46:52,920 --> 00:46:56,160
Speaker 1: artists who neglects their family to focus on their art,

856
00:46:56,280 --> 00:46:58,719
Speaker 1: or a business person that does the same thing. In

857
00:46:58,760 --> 00:47:02,880
Speaker 1: those scenarios, it be you know, I guess you know,

858
00:47:03,120 --> 00:47:05,440
Speaker 1: maybe in a warped sensor in a way that that

859
00:47:05,440 --> 00:47:08,520
Speaker 1: that caters to their their prime focus. Might it be

860
00:47:08,520 --> 00:47:11,080
Speaker 1: beneficial to just think, oh, I'm a good dad, I'm

861
00:47:11,080 --> 00:47:14,400
Speaker 1: a good husband, even when they're not. But it enables

862
00:47:14,400 --> 00:47:16,680
Speaker 1: them to then put all of their more of their

863
00:47:16,680 --> 00:47:20,080
Speaker 1: resources anyway into the pursuit of the thing that ultimately

864
00:47:20,120 --> 00:47:22,840
Speaker 1: matters to them, like you know, card, hard cold cash,

865
00:47:23,000 --> 00:47:27,000
Speaker 1: or the pursuit of art. Yeah. Well, so to be clear,

866
00:47:27,160 --> 00:47:30,320
Speaker 1: obviously this wouldn't mean that it's actually useful in being

867
00:47:30,360 --> 00:47:32,839
Speaker 1: a good person have any good life, but it may

868
00:47:33,120 --> 00:47:36,920
Speaker 1: very well be useful in focusing on whatever it is

869
00:47:36,960 --> 00:47:40,160
Speaker 1: that really matters to you, to be overconfident about your

870
00:47:40,239 --> 00:47:43,880
Speaker 1: your crappy efforts in other areas of life. Yeah, I

871
00:47:44,160 --> 00:47:47,000
Speaker 1: think that's entirely true. So it's it's yeah, it's interesting

872
00:47:47,000 --> 00:47:49,400
Speaker 1: to compare the to the corporate version of this and

873
00:47:49,440 --> 00:47:51,719
Speaker 1: the individual version of this. And certainly if you want

874
00:47:51,719 --> 00:47:54,840
Speaker 1: to read more about this idea of the Chris paradox,

875
00:47:55,000 --> 00:47:58,400
Speaker 1: uh I certainly recommend checking out more of his writings.

876
00:47:58,440 --> 00:48:01,080
Speaker 1: So we have all these economic metaphors, like you know

877
00:48:01,160 --> 00:48:04,080
Speaker 1: from Adam Smith, the Invisible Hand or whatever. I feel

878
00:48:04,120 --> 00:48:07,560
Speaker 1: like we need an economic metaphor of the nemesis, like

879
00:48:07,600 --> 00:48:10,799
Speaker 1: the Nemesis that is this force in the market that

880
00:48:10,840 --> 00:48:15,640
Speaker 1: swoops into punish hubrist and overconfidence in business. Yeah, sometimes

881
00:48:15,680 --> 00:48:20,360
Speaker 1: it seems like Nemesis is a little a little uh

882
00:48:20,840 --> 00:48:22,960
Speaker 1: resistant to doing that. I don't know. I mean, part

883
00:48:22,960 --> 00:48:24,840
Speaker 1: of it comes down again to the fact that that

884
00:48:25,360 --> 00:48:30,080
Speaker 1: businesses and corporations are are are less mortal. Well, yeah,

885
00:48:30,120 --> 00:48:32,680
Speaker 1: I mean it is funny that, uh, we've discussed a

886
00:48:32,719 --> 00:48:35,640
Speaker 1: lot of these episodes how overconfidence can both lead to

887
00:48:35,840 --> 00:48:39,759
Speaker 1: disaster and and negative outcomes, but can also in some

888
00:48:39,840 --> 00:48:44,040
Speaker 1: cases be highly rewarded and be very lucrative. Yeah. Yeah,

889
00:48:44,840 --> 00:48:49,040
Speaker 1: you know, I'm also remind talking about, you know, curbing

890
00:48:49,160 --> 00:48:52,520
Speaker 1: overconfidence or the perception of overconfidence by making statements that

891
00:48:52,600 --> 00:48:55,520
Speaker 1: cannot be put to the test. You of course see

892
00:48:55,520 --> 00:48:57,920
Speaker 1: that a lot in the business world. You know that

893
00:48:58,480 --> 00:49:01,200
Speaker 1: if you're saying you're the best card leadership in the galaxy,

894
00:49:01,880 --> 00:49:03,640
Speaker 1: you know that you can get away with saying you're

895
00:49:03,680 --> 00:49:07,400
Speaker 1: the best car dealership in town. Well then people can say, well,

896
00:49:07,440 --> 00:49:09,800
Speaker 1: let's see your sales numbers, let's compare you to gems

897
00:49:09,800 --> 00:49:11,879
Speaker 1: across town. No, even that would be easier to get

898
00:49:11,880 --> 00:49:13,400
Speaker 1: away with. Like the one that would be hard to

899
00:49:13,400 --> 00:49:15,520
Speaker 1: get away with is saying like we have the lowest

900
00:49:15,640 --> 00:49:18,400
Speaker 1: prices in town. That's something like that. Then you're like,

901
00:49:18,800 --> 00:49:21,480
Speaker 1: then you're stuck either that's true or that's not right.

902
00:49:22,239 --> 00:49:24,320
Speaker 1: But then again, on a personal and the personal level,

903
00:49:24,360 --> 00:49:26,440
Speaker 1: you know, you can have your mug that says world's

904
00:49:26,440 --> 00:49:29,480
Speaker 1: greatest dad and nobody's gonna call you on that. What

905
00:49:29,600 --> 00:49:33,560
Speaker 1: you can get out your dad ruler and measure me. Yeah,

906
00:49:33,680 --> 00:49:36,120
Speaker 1: all right, So I think we've we've reached the end

907
00:49:36,160 --> 00:49:39,239
Speaker 1: of our discussion here for the week on over confidence,

908
00:49:39,880 --> 00:49:41,799
Speaker 1: but clearly there's a there's a lot of material here.

909
00:49:42,080 --> 00:49:44,799
Speaker 1: It will be interesting to hear back from listeners because

910
00:49:44,800 --> 00:49:46,560
Speaker 1: I think we all have some perspective on this. We

911
00:49:46,600 --> 00:49:50,279
Speaker 1: all have experience with with over confidence in others, or

912
00:49:50,719 --> 00:49:54,040
Speaker 1: certainly in over confidence in ourselves or the management of

913
00:49:54,080 --> 00:49:56,960
Speaker 1: overconfidence in ourselves, and so we we'd love to hear

914
00:49:56,960 --> 00:49:59,640
Speaker 1: everyone's thoughts on this. In the meantime, if you want

915
00:49:59,640 --> 00:50:01,640
Speaker 1: to check other episodes of stuff to blow your mind.

916
00:50:02,040 --> 00:50:05,160
Speaker 1: You can find them wherever you find your podcasts. If

917
00:50:05,200 --> 00:50:06,840
Speaker 1: you go to stuff to Blow your Mind dot com,

918
00:50:06,880 --> 00:50:09,320
Speaker 1: that will lead you over to the I heart listing

919
00:50:09,360 --> 00:50:12,440
Speaker 1: for our show, but you can find us anywhere and

920
00:50:12,480 --> 00:50:15,360
Speaker 1: wherever that happens to be. Just make sure you rate, review,

921
00:50:15,440 --> 00:50:18,920
Speaker 1: and subscribe. That really helps us out huge Thanks as

922
00:50:18,920 --> 00:50:22,239
Speaker 1: always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If

923
00:50:22,280 --> 00:50:23,600
Speaker 1: you would like to get in touch with us with

924
00:50:23,680 --> 00:50:26,360
Speaker 1: feedback on this episode or any other to suggest topic

925
00:50:26,400 --> 00:50:28,760
Speaker 1: for the future, just to say hey, you can email

926
00:50:28,840 --> 00:50:39,239
Speaker 1: us at contact at stuff to blow your Mind dot com.

927
00:50:39,320 --> 00:50:41,160
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a production of iHeart

928
00:50:41,239 --> 00:50:43,560
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