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Speaker 1: In tedious exile. Now too long detained Dadalus languished for

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Speaker 1: his native land. The sea foreclosed his flight. Yet thus

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Speaker 1: he said, though earth and water, in subjection laid o

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Speaker 1: cruel minos thy dominion be, will go through air, for

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Speaker 1: sure the air is free. Then to new arts his

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Speaker 1: cunning thought applies, and to improve the work of nature,

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Speaker 1: tries a row of quills in gradual order, placed rise

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Speaker 1: by degrees in length from first to last, as on

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Speaker 1: a cliff. The ascending thicket grows or different reeds the

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Speaker 1: rural pipe compose. Along the middle runs a twine of flax.

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Speaker 1: The bottom stems are join'd by pliant wax, thus well compact.

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Speaker 1: A hollow bending brings the fine composure into real wings.

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Speaker 1: His boy, young Icarus, that near him, stood unthinking of

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Speaker 1: his fate, with smiles, pursued the floating feathers which the

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Speaker 1: moving air bore loosely from the ground and wasted here

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Speaker 1: and there. Or with the wax impertinently played, and with

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Speaker 1: his childish tricks, the great design delayed. The final master stroke.

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Speaker 1: At last imposed, and now the neat machine completely closed.

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Speaker 1: Fitting his pinions. On a flight, he tries and hung

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Speaker 1: self balanced and the beaten skies. Then thus instructs his child,

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Speaker 1: My boy, take care to win your course along the

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Speaker 1: middle air. If low the surge is wet your flagging plumes.

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Speaker 1: If high the sun the melting wax consumed, steer between both,

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Speaker 1: nor to the northern skies, nor south orion. Turn your

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Speaker 1: giddy eyes, but follow me. Let me before you lay

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Speaker 1: rules for the flight, and mock the pathless way. Then,

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Speaker 1: teaching with a fond concern his son, he took the

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Speaker 1: untried wings and fixed them on, but fixed with trembling hands,

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Speaker 1: and as he speaks, the tears rolled gently down his

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Speaker 1: age cheeks. Then kissed and in his arms embraced him fast,

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Speaker 1: but knew not this embrace must be the last. And

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Speaker 1: mounting upward as he wings his flight back on his charge,

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Speaker 1: he turns an aching sight as parent birds when their

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Speaker 1: first callow care leave the high ness to tempt the

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Speaker 1: liquid air, then cheers him on and oft with fatal art,

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Speaker 1: reminds the stripling to perform his part. These as the

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Speaker 1: angler at the silent brook, or mountain shepherd leaning on

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Speaker 1: his crook, or gaping plowman from the veil descries, they

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Speaker 1: stare and view them with religious eyes and straight conclude

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Speaker 1: them gods, since none but they, through their own azure skies,

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Speaker 1: could find a way. Now delos Paros on the left

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Speaker 1: are Scene and Samos, favored by Jove's haughty queen. Upon

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Speaker 1: the right the isle of Lebenthos, named and fair Calumny

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Speaker 1: for its honey famed. When now the boy whose childish

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Speaker 1: thoughts aspire to lofty your raims and make him ramble higher,

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Speaker 1: grown wild and wanton, more emboldened, flies far from his guide,

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Speaker 1: and soars among the skies. The softening wax that felt

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Speaker 1: a nearer son dissolved a pace and soon began to run.

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Speaker 1: The youth in vain, His melting pinions shakes, his feathers

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Speaker 1: gone no longer air. He takes oh Father, Father, as

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Speaker 1: he strove to cry down to the sea. He tumbled

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Speaker 1: from on high and found his fate, yet still subsists

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Speaker 1: by fame among those waters that retain his name. Welcome

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Speaker 1: to Stuff to Blow your Mind? A production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radios How Stuff Works? Hey, are you welcome to

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Speaker 1: stuff to blow your Mind? My name is Robert Lamb

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Speaker 1: and I'm Joe McCormick. And that was, of course from

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Speaker 1: Ovid's metamorphoses the Garthen Dryden translation the story of Daedalus

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Speaker 1: and Icarus one of our favorites that uh, actually i'd

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Speaker 1: say is a sort of recurring theme on invention as well. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it was one of our I believe we wanted to

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Speaker 1: originally call the show Datalists in fact, uh, and it

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Speaker 1: was decided that that was to obscure. The business masters

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Speaker 1: were like, people will not know what that is. Um.

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Speaker 1: You know, I enjoyed reading through this, uh, this excerpt

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Speaker 1: from from ovid here because even though we have talked

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Speaker 1: at length about Datalus and nicaras before and or at

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Speaker 1: least in passing, you know, bringing up to sort of

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Speaker 1: the metaphor and the invention and talked about we've talked

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Speaker 1: about data lists, other uh inventions and myth as well.

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Speaker 1: But this, this reading, I think is is rather nice

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Speaker 1: because it also captures the humanity of the characters and

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Speaker 1: and certainly as a father, you know, I can certainly

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Speaker 1: relate to some of these feelings as he's trying to

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Speaker 1: prepare his boy for the challenges ahead. There's real passion,

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Speaker 1: and there's passion in the different concerns of the father

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Speaker 1: and the son. The father wants freedom, wants escape, and

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Speaker 1: he wants safety, and the sun wants fun. It's basically

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Speaker 1: um Cat Stephen's song father and Son, but in in

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Speaker 1: in mythic form. Now, there are a lot of themes

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Speaker 1: you could get into when discussing the story of Icarus

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Speaker 1: and Deadla. So one of the main themes, of course,

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Speaker 1: that people draw out of this story is the theme

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Speaker 1: of over confidence and over confidence leading to disaster, right, yes,

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Speaker 1: and so that is going to be our main focus

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Speaker 1: for these episodes. But we're pretty excited about it. We

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Speaker 1: did no research and and we think we can we

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Speaker 1: can probably get four or five episodes out of this.

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Speaker 1: So we can just wing it, you know, you know,

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Speaker 1: winging it. Yes, yes, that is what it is. I

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Speaker 1: think that is. I wonder if that's where the phrase

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Speaker 1: comes from. You're just winging it like chorus. I don't know. Okay, Well,

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Speaker 1: if you got lost in the English couplets there of

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Speaker 1: Garth and Dryden and so forth, Robert, could you just

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Speaker 1: give a brief summary of what actually happens in the

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Speaker 1: myth of Vicarus and Dedalus. Yeah, yeah, I'm just breaking

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Speaker 1: it down to the major plot points. Year. Um, these

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Speaker 1: these are artificial wings crafted by the master engineer Datalus,

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Speaker 1: and then he, uh, he helps his son Icarus put

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Speaker 1: them on. They're using these to escape from Minos. He

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Speaker 1: who is the master of the Maze and the master

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Speaker 1: of the minotaur um and uh so you know, he

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Speaker 1: puts these these amazing wings on him. But then Icarus

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Speaker 1: flies too close to the sun. The rays melt the

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Speaker 1: wax and he falls to his death. And he's been

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Speaker 1: specifically warned, yeah, don't fly too close to the sun.

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Speaker 1: It's gonna melt the wax. You're gonna plummet and fall.

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Speaker 1: But he still flies too high. He flies beyond the

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Speaker 1: the his ability, flies beyond the engineering constraints of the wings,

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Speaker 1: and perishes for it. I love the word choice in

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Speaker 1: the poem in the English version. He wants to ramble higher.

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Speaker 1: He's he's having fun. He's out there. He's like, it'll

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Speaker 1: be fine. Yeah. And I think one of the key

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Speaker 1: things to keep in mind about this myth, if we're

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Speaker 1: looking at it and focusing on over confidence, is that

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Speaker 1: Datalus is a master at createing these wings, and Hi

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Speaker 1: Charas is no slouch at flying with them, obviously, so

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Speaker 1: it's not a you know, an Emperor's new clothes scenario

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Speaker 1: where one is confident, you know, with without any underlying skill,

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Speaker 1: Like there's plenty of skill to go around here, but

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Speaker 1: the ideas that charas As sends just a little too high.

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Speaker 1: He he goes to that place that he has worn

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Speaker 1: two road to to avoid, and that is his downfall.

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Speaker 1: Even though there is a real basis for confidence, the

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Speaker 1: confidence in the brain exceeds the confidence warranted by circumstances.

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Speaker 1: But then that becomes the whole focus of the myth. Right,

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Speaker 1: nobody stops to admire, like, hey, datal Is really built

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Speaker 1: some amazing wings and Icarus was really great at flying them.

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Speaker 1: Now we just focus on the fact that he dies

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Speaker 1: and falls into the ocean. And this very idea of

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Speaker 1: like overconfidence that you know that that meets a tragic

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Speaker 1: end is such a powerful and common theme of myths

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Speaker 1: and drama throughout history. Yeah, myths and drama and of

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Speaker 1: course human histories, which of course involve both myth making

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Speaker 1: and uh and dramatic storytelling telling. But there's just so

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Speaker 1: much of it. It's such a frequent trope that on

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Speaker 1: one hand, it's easy to just not think about it,

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Speaker 1: like this is just what happens in our stories. So,

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Speaker 1: you know, we either can't get enough of tales of

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Speaker 1: hubrists and uh and over confidence, or it's just such

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Speaker 1: a common feature of human enterprise and ambition that is

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Speaker 1: just a necessary plot point in almost any tale worth telling. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think it's not a coincidence that so many figures

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Speaker 1: from history display hubris and overconfidence, because I think overconfidence

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Speaker 1: is the kind of trait that, in a lot of

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Speaker 1: cases specifically is what gets you into the history books

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Speaker 1: and uh. And from a historical point of view, um,

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Speaker 1: you know, granted, is not always a simple matter, because

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Speaker 1: you know, when you encounter the all too frequent tales

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Speaker 1: of an overconfident but a net ruler, you have to

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Speaker 1: consider that, you know, uh, these you know, history is

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Speaker 1: told by the victors, and this is likely the story

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Speaker 1: about about about a deposed ruler. But sure enough, you

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Speaker 1: look at any um you know history of kings and emperors,

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Speaker 1: you will inevitably find multiple examples of someone who has

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Speaker 1: pointed out for their overconfidence like this, this ruler became

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Speaker 1: too overconfident and that was their downfall. And of course

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Speaker 1: the world of mythic expression is just full of wonderful

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Speaker 1: examples to chew on. One that certainly comes to mind

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Speaker 1: in Judaeo Christian traditions and especially in Milton's literary treatment

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Speaker 1: of the character, is that of Satan, like the classic

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Speaker 1: character who who you know, was prideful enough to rebel

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Speaker 1: against the all powerful creator God and uh and then

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Speaker 1: falls for it. And that is actually a concept from

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Speaker 1: the Bible itself, from from the tanaka. I mean, in

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Speaker 1: Proverbs sixteen eighteen, you get pride go with before destruction,

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Speaker 1: the haughty spirit before a fall. Yeah. Uh. And then

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Speaker 1: of course we already talked about about Icarus. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: You'll find plenty of examples of God's smiting immortal underlings

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Speaker 1: or mere mortals for find them, and often their central

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Speaker 1: crime is basically they that they dared to think themselves

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Speaker 1: greater than they are. They overstepped their status in place

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Speaker 1: in the grand hierarchy. In fact, in addition to Icarus,

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Speaker 1: I think at least two tales are worth pointing out.

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Speaker 1: But these are by far not the only stories of

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Speaker 1: God's punishing mortals and immortals for overstepping their boundaries. One

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Speaker 1: of my favorites is the Web of Arachne. So this

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Speaker 1: is this is a wonderful tale in which you have

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Speaker 1: the mortal Arachne, who challenges Athena, goddess of wisdom and crafts,

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Speaker 1: to a weaving contest, which, of course is always a

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Speaker 1: terrible thing to do. Never challenge a god to a

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Speaker 1: contest unless it's a fiddle contest, and that god is

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Speaker 1: the devil and you're down in Georgia, right, and then yes,

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Speaker 1: maybe you can pull it off in the in that

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Speaker 1: in in that specific scenario. Um but but but in

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Speaker 1: this scenario, you know, you're not dealing with the devil,

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Speaker 1: You're dealing with the goddess Athena. And so Athena, as

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Speaker 1: one i'd expect, crafts a perfect tapestry, resplendent and depictions

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Speaker 1: of the gods punishing mortals for their hubrists and Arachne

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Speaker 1: it creates unequally awesome tapestry. But hers depicts all the

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Speaker 1: various ways that the gods have manipulated and tormented mortals. Um,

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Speaker 1: so she's getting a little fresh. Yeah. Well, they're both

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Speaker 1: putting a lot of, uh, you know, a lot of

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Speaker 1: emotion into their their work here there, But they're both

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Speaker 1: kind of taunting the other with their subject matter. The

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Speaker 1: problem is Arachne is immortal, and Athena is a god.

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Speaker 1: Uh And of course the Greek gods are not known

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Speaker 1: for their reasonable demeanor, right they don't, and so Athena

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Speaker 1: doesn't play fair. Instead, she becomes enraged, She destroys Arachne's work,

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Speaker 1: beats her, and leaves her to suicidal shame. And after

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Speaker 1: she has died, Arachne becomes the spiders of Earth. And

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Speaker 1: that's kind of the origin story for spiders and and

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Speaker 1: so forth biological ideological myth. Right, it tells why spiders weave. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: But but one of the interesting wrinkles in all of

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Speaker 1: this is that both tapestries are accurate from their creator's

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Speaker 1: points of view, that the ending to this story is

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Speaker 1: either yet another example of the god's cruelty or another

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Speaker 1: example of mortals being rightfully punished for their pride. Um.

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Speaker 1: And again, much like the chorus scenario, Arachne is highly skilled,

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Speaker 1: like she crafts of a work that rivals or even equals,

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Speaker 1: or perhaps even surpasses the work of the goddess. Uh.

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Speaker 1: So she may not have overstepped her ability, but she

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Speaker 1: certainly oversteps her place. Right, it's a different kind of pride.

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Speaker 1: She wasn't overconfident and how good of a weaver she is.

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Speaker 1: She was overconfident in what she could get away with

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Speaker 1: saying yeah. And then of course another example, in one

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Speaker 1: that we come back to again and again on the show,

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Speaker 1: is that of Prometheus. Uh. Prometheus, the Titan, having stolen

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Speaker 1: from the gods the coreld a fire, defied them in

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Speaker 1: giving this secret to the mortals. Uh. He has then

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Speaker 1: punished for all eternity for this sin. Yeah. Another one

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Speaker 1: that comes to my mind is the myth of Feton,

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Speaker 1: the son of the god Helio. So remember he wants

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Speaker 1: to pilot the chariot. He's like, I want to get

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Speaker 1: in the chariot, but uh, he's warned it would not

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Speaker 1: be a good idea. And he's like, no, no, I

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Speaker 1: can handle it. I can Yeah, I can drive. And

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Speaker 1: he gets in there and the horses I don't remember

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Speaker 1: exactly what happens, like the horses don't recognize him or something.

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Speaker 1: They go nuts and the chariot crashes into the earth

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Speaker 1: or something or there there's general disaster. Right. Yeah, that's

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Speaker 1: a good one. And then there there are various other

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Speaker 1: tales as well that that we could we could we

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Speaker 1: could focus on because again it's just a recurring theme

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Speaker 1: in Greek mythology. But but also you know other belief

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Speaker 1: systems as well, like, for instance, just briefly, there's a

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Speaker 1: a fun Chinese example of pride and punishment in which

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Speaker 1: the Yellow Emperor makes use of of ying long the

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Speaker 1: responding dragon to execute the God of war to you

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Speaker 1: after we dared to raise arms against the Yellow Emperor.

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Speaker 1: So there that would be a tale of the god

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Speaker 1: of war being overconfident in his ability to overthrow the king. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so many times you do see a more of a

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Speaker 1: militant example of this, you know, the idea that, oh,

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Speaker 1: you think you can defeat the god, but you cannot,

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Speaker 1: and you're punished for that um either and then other

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Speaker 1: times it's a contest or something to that effect. One

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Speaker 1: thing that I love in the Greek conception of of

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Speaker 1: hubris is that there was a goddess that existed purely

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Speaker 1: to splatter people who displayed arrogance and over confidence. And

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Speaker 1: this was the goddess Nemesis, who I really think we

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Speaker 1: we I wish we had a Nemesis today. Uh So

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Speaker 1: I found I was looking around for stuff about Nemesis,

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Speaker 1: and I found this amazing thing that was a a

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Speaker 1: hymn to the goddess Nemesis, composed by somebody from ancient

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Speaker 1: Greece named Mesomades. And this is a translation by somebody

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Speaker 1: named yelled. Uh. So I've got to read this. This,

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Speaker 1: this boiled my brain. Winged Nemesis, turner of the scales

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Speaker 1: of life, blue eyed goddess, daughter of Justice, who, with

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Speaker 1: your unbending bridle, dominate the vain arrogance of men and

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Speaker 1: loathing man's fatal vanity, obliterate black envy. Beneath your wheel,

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Speaker 1: unstable and leaving no imprint, The fate of men is

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Speaker 1: tossed you, who come unnoticed in an instant to subdue

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Speaker 1: the insolent head. You measure life with your hand, and

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Speaker 1: with frowning brows hold the yolke. Hail, blessed, immortal Goddess.

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Speaker 1: Winged Nemesis, turning the scales of life, imperishable and Holy

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Speaker 1: Goddess Nemesis, victory of unfurled wings, powerful, infallible, who shares

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Speaker 1: the altar with justice, and furious at human pride, casts

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Speaker 1: a man into the abyss of Tartarus. Yeah. When I

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Speaker 1: read that at home the other day, I like literally

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Speaker 1: exclaimed out loud um While I'm not usually a big

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Speaker 1: like cast people into Tartarus kind of guy. You know,

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Speaker 1: I don't love like eternal torment and hell and all that.

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Speaker 1: I do kind of wish for a nemesis sometimes to

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Speaker 1: like fly in, scoop up the fatally vein and arrogant

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Speaker 1: leaders who you know, inflict their over confidence on everybody else,

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Speaker 1: and kind of just toss him under the wheel. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I too love this concept of a nemesis. Uh. It's

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Speaker 1: also a frequent subject of paintings. You'll see a lot

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Speaker 1: of you know, European paintings of a nemesis that really

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Speaker 1: uh to take advantage of these angelic properties that are

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Speaker 1: described here, this winged uh female form that is beautiful

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Speaker 1: and terrifying, an embodiment of something kind of like karma,

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Speaker 1: you know, divine retribution, the goddess that comes to avenge

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Speaker 1: against you when you become too prideful. Though I do

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Speaker 1: think it's actually more complicated than we usually think of

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Speaker 1: hubris in the modern sense, right, because like the way

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Speaker 1: we use hubris, it really does just generally mean like pride, arrogance,

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Speaker 1: and overconfidence. But I think you were looking into something

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Speaker 1: about how the ancient Greeks had a more complicated and

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Speaker 1: specific yeah, define it gets it gets interesting. I was

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Speaker 1: looking at at the Oxford Classical Dictionary, and as in

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Speaker 1: our Fisher pointed out, it was really more of intentionally

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Speaker 1: dishonoring behavior. And the author points to Aristotle is providing

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Speaker 1: a solid understanding of Greek hubrists. So Aristotle contends that

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Speaker 1: hubris was quote doing and saying things at which the

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Speaker 1: victim incurs shame, not in order that one may achieve

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Speaker 1: anything other than what he's done, but simply to get

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Speaker 1: pleasure from it. For those who act in return for

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Speaker 1: something do not commit hubris, they avenge themselves. The cause

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Speaker 1: of the pleasure for those committing hubrists is that by

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Speaker 1: harming people, they think themselves superior. That is why the

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Speaker 1: young and the rich of humoristic as they think they

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Speaker 1: are superior when they commit hubris. This is so it's

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Speaker 1: just sadism. Yeah, basically, it's just like being mean for

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Speaker 1: mean sake and being like hurting people in a dishonorable way.

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Speaker 1: And I think specifically because it makes you feel superior, right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And and it is also worth noting that like this

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Speaker 1: is apparently really key to the system of honor and

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Speaker 1: dishonor that which really important to Greek society. That's right,

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Speaker 1: I think. I mean one thing that's kind of hard

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Speaker 1: to understand is like when you read ancient Greek literature,

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Speaker 1: you might notice that they seem to have a different

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Speaker 1: idea of morality than we usually do, like for them

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Speaker 1: that they're concepts of morals often have more to do

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Speaker 1: with with things that are considered honorable versus things that

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Speaker 1: are considered say, uh, for the good of others. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And you know, it's almost what you were just reading

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Speaker 1: reminds me of the classical Greek theory of humor, which

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Speaker 1: we talked about in our Plato sex Macina episode. So

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Speaker 1: that Plato and Aristotle basically said, this is hard to

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Speaker 1: imagine because it sounds so so hateful, But you know,

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Speaker 1: these ancient Greek philosophers are like, things are funny because

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Speaker 1: they make you realize you're superior to other people. Uh So.

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Speaker 1: Plato in his Philibus dialogue is discussing the nature of pleasure,

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Speaker 1: and he says, you know, there are different kinds of pleasures.

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Speaker 1: He's talking about why pleasures of the mind are better

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Speaker 1: than pleasures of the flesh, of the of the body.

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Speaker 1: And he's talking about laughing at people, and he says,

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Speaker 1: you know, one of the main things that's great about

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Speaker 1: laughing at people is that you can laugh at people

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Speaker 1: who don't recognize their own misfortune. So there are people

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Speaker 1: who are stupid but they think they're smart, or there

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Speaker 1: are people who are ugly but they think they're handsome,

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Speaker 1: and that's really funny, right, Yeah, But in in in

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Speaker 1: this it gets more specifically into the use of violence.

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Speaker 1: Um and Hubrews was taken very seriously in Athens, as

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Speaker 1: there was a law of hubris. In this context, I've

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Speaker 1: seen it define more specifically and in this kind of

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Speaker 1: this is basically what Aristotle said, But an even shorter

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Speaker 1: version would be the intentional use of violence to humiliate

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Speaker 1: or degrade again, kind of a sadism, things like I'm

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Speaker 1: better than you and I'll show you by hurting you.

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Speaker 1: And and in Athens, unlike murder charges which could only

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Speaker 1: be brought forth by the family of the victim, charges

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Speaker 1: of hubrists, like charges of treason or in pity, could

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Speaker 1: be leveled by anyone at anyone. So it's we're talking

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Speaker 1: about shameful conduct that ultimately threatens the shame on or

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Speaker 1: building blocks of society itself. You know, I do see

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Speaker 1: a connection, even though that this is different than what

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Speaker 1: we usually think of as hubrist. I see what's going

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Speaker 1: on here, like I see the conceptual link, the link

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Speaker 1: between pride, arrogance, over confidence on one hand, and sadism

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Speaker 1: on the other. I mean, it's sadism almost seems to

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Speaker 1: kind of imply and assumed pride and arrogance and over confidence.

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Speaker 1: It assumes a world view without stating it that one is,

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Speaker 1: you know, better, more deserving than other people, and that

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Speaker 1: their faiths are subordinate to your own. Yeah, that it is.

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Speaker 1: It is weird to think of this from like a

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Speaker 1: modern standard, because you know, I can think of numerous

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Speaker 1: examples of individuals, especially like popular celebrity type individuals, where

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Speaker 1: you think of them and you think, oh, well, that

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Speaker 1: person is clearly guilty of hubrists, and yet by the

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Speaker 1: great definition, I don't know if they actually used violence

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Speaker 1: against someone. Like one of the examples, a political example

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Speaker 1: that was brought up was like if if one politician

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Speaker 1: struck another during a speech, like that's but I don't know.

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Speaker 1: In ancient Greece, maybe that was that was an easier

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Speaker 1: thing to occur in Certainly there are examples of things

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Speaker 1: like that occurring in American political history, but uh, I

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Speaker 1: mean not recently so, but well no, but I mean

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Speaker 1: I think, yes, you're not coming to physical violence, but

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Speaker 1: I could say that that's an extension of the impulse

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Speaker 1: you see in just sort of like bullying and blatant

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Speaker 1: disrespect and all that, where you're you are assuming a

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Speaker 1: position of superiority that denies that you would even have

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Speaker 1: to to speak on another person's terms. Yeah, so I

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Speaker 1: think we see plenty of examples of things that are

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Speaker 1: certainly in the spirit of of Greek hubrists, but not

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Speaker 1: the definition of actual physical violence. They fall short of that,

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Speaker 1: but perhaps not by much. All Right, on that note,

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Speaker 1: we're going to take our first break, but when we

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Speaker 1: come back, we will will get further into this question

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Speaker 1: of over confidence, and we'll start we'll start looking at

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Speaker 1: it beyond mythology and history and more at our actual

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Speaker 1: daily lives, in our actual inner world. Thank thank Alright,

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Speaker 1: we're back. Okay, So we all think we know what

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Speaker 1: over confidences we know when we see it. It's a

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Speaker 1: common enough character flaw that there are millennia old strains

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Speaker 1: of drama and comedy that basically just exists to punish

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Speaker 1: it over and over again for our amusement and entertainment. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and of course we always have to remember with tales

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Speaker 1: like that, this is not just about the subject of

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Speaker 1: the tale, but it's about the consumer of the tale.

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Speaker 1: You know, a lot of times we're we're taking in

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Speaker 1: these tales of hubrists not only to relish in the

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Speaker 1: downfall of these various villains in our lives and in

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Speaker 1: our histories and in our world, but also is is

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Speaker 1: cautionary tales, you know, like again warnings not to ascend

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Speaker 1: too high towards the sun, that sort of thing. Right. Uh.

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Speaker 1: So we know overconfidence means, of course having too much confidence,

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00:23:14,960 --> 00:23:16,639
Speaker 1: but you gotta go one level down from that to

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Speaker 1: understand the idea, try to define confidence. And when you

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Speaker 1: do that, I think you do run into problems because

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Speaker 1: you discover confidence can mean a number of sort of

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00:23:25,800 --> 00:23:29,159
Speaker 1: different things that are related but separate. So I was

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Speaker 1: looking at a few just dictionary definitions to help get these,

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Speaker 1: uh in order, and I think the Miriam Webster ones

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Speaker 1: capture it pretty well. So one is a feeling or

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Speaker 1: consciousness of one's powers or of reliance on one's circumstances,

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Speaker 1: So applied to the self, that's basically the statement I

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Speaker 1: can do this, and that confidence could be well founded

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Speaker 1: or not well founded. Um. The next one would be

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Speaker 1: faith or belief that one will act in a right,

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Speaker 1: proper or effective way. That one's a little more complicated,

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Speaker 1: so that that's not just I can do it, but

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Speaker 1: I will do the right thing. Like an example of

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Speaker 1: this that I run into every now and then its

419
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Speaker 1: discussions of what will happen if I win the lottery.

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Speaker 1: You will not be able to handle all that money

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Speaker 1: coming into your life and you're not prepared for what

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Speaker 1: it's going to do to your your your social world.

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Speaker 1: But then you think, I don't know. I think I

424
00:24:18,240 --> 00:24:20,560
Speaker 1: can handle it, though I think I'm the exception. I

425
00:24:20,600 --> 00:24:22,720
Speaker 1: think I'd be able to put that money to good use,

426
00:24:22,720 --> 00:24:24,919
Speaker 1: and I don't think wealth will change me at all. Right,

427
00:24:24,960 --> 00:24:28,560
Speaker 1: You're like, I'll give it all to charity. Sure, Yeah.

428
00:24:28,560 --> 00:24:30,760
Speaker 1: And then there there, of course, is the third one,

429
00:24:30,800 --> 00:24:33,480
Speaker 1: which is the quality or state of being certain. And

430
00:24:33,520 --> 00:24:35,359
Speaker 1: this is sort of different from the others, but I

431
00:24:35,359 --> 00:24:40,960
Speaker 1: guess it's related. It's like trusting yourself to discern things correctly.

432
00:24:41,040 --> 00:24:43,399
Speaker 1: It's I know what's correct, I know what's right, my

433
00:24:43,520 --> 00:24:47,320
Speaker 1: beliefs are solid. And of course this division can present

434
00:24:47,320 --> 00:24:50,080
Speaker 1: a problem for researchers. You have to study different types

435
00:24:50,760 --> 00:24:54,320
Speaker 1: of overconfidence differently to really understand the spectrum of ways

436
00:24:54,400 --> 00:24:56,359
Speaker 1: that it affects human life. And we'll come back to

437
00:24:56,440 --> 00:24:58,760
Speaker 1: that with especially one of the studies that we look

438
00:24:58,800 --> 00:25:01,200
Speaker 1: at in this pair of episodes, Because if we were

439
00:25:01,200 --> 00:25:04,199
Speaker 1: just to divide confidence up into these three categories, like

440
00:25:04,520 --> 00:25:07,560
Speaker 1: as above, you can easily have people all over the spectrum.

441
00:25:07,600 --> 00:25:10,960
Speaker 1: Someone could be completely overconfident in their ability to do

442
00:25:11,040 --> 00:25:14,960
Speaker 1: something and then also be have a very reasonable expectation of,

443
00:25:15,040 --> 00:25:16,600
Speaker 1: you know, whether or not they do the right thing.

444
00:25:16,800 --> 00:25:19,119
Speaker 1: You know, they might say, who, I don't know if

445
00:25:19,119 --> 00:25:21,919
Speaker 1: I can if I can actually make it across this

446
00:25:22,000 --> 00:25:25,600
Speaker 1: tight rope. But when I when I, when I fall off,

447
00:25:25,640 --> 00:25:29,159
Speaker 1: I'm definitely going to soil my breeches, you know. And

448
00:25:29,200 --> 00:25:31,679
Speaker 1: I think there is ah there's evidence that there's a

449
00:25:31,680 --> 00:25:36,199
Speaker 1: pretty big difference in how confidence in your abilities and

450
00:25:36,240 --> 00:25:40,280
Speaker 1: performance manifests versus how confidence in your the correctness of

451
00:25:40,280 --> 00:25:44,240
Speaker 1: your beliefs manifests um. But if we zoom in on

452
00:25:44,320 --> 00:25:47,560
Speaker 1: specific types of overconfidence, we can find some of the

453
00:25:47,600 --> 00:25:51,240
Speaker 1: best supported effects in all of psychology really. And so

454
00:25:51,359 --> 00:25:54,160
Speaker 1: one very recent paper that we wanted to look at

455
00:25:54,520 --> 00:25:58,920
Speaker 1: was published just this year in Psychological Bulletin by Ethan Zell,

456
00:25:59,400 --> 00:26:03,800
Speaker 1: Jason E. Strickhauser, Constantine set Akidas, and Mark d Alika.

457
00:26:03,960 --> 00:26:06,760
Speaker 1: And it's called the Better than Average Effect in Comparative

458
00:26:06,760 --> 00:26:11,200
Speaker 1: Self Evaluation, A Comprehensive Review and meta analysis. Uh. And

459
00:26:11,280 --> 00:26:15,560
Speaker 1: so this was a huge survey of existing published research

460
00:26:15,640 --> 00:26:19,080
Speaker 1: on something called the better than average effect, which is

461
00:26:19,200 --> 00:26:23,960
Speaker 1: the tendency for people to perceive their abilities, attributes, and

462
00:26:24,040 --> 00:26:29,840
Speaker 1: personality traits as superior compared to their average peer. So

463
00:26:29,960 --> 00:26:34,160
Speaker 1: what would that actually mean. Here's an example. Almost everybody

464
00:26:34,200 --> 00:26:37,200
Speaker 1: thinks that they are a much better than average driver.

465
00:26:38,320 --> 00:26:42,840
Speaker 1: Good drivers correctly think this, bad drivers incorrectly think this.

466
00:26:43,359 --> 00:26:46,679
Speaker 1: Few people actually think I am a bad driver, or

467
00:26:46,720 --> 00:26:49,879
Speaker 1: even I am an average driver. But of course, if

468
00:26:49,920 --> 00:26:51,840
Speaker 1: you just go by the median, which is how this

469
00:26:51,920 --> 00:26:54,159
Speaker 1: question is phrased in the studies that look at it,

470
00:26:54,640 --> 00:26:57,879
Speaker 1: half of drivers are by definition worse than the media

471
00:26:57,960 --> 00:27:01,360
Speaker 1: at driving skill, and yet nine do something percent think

472
00:27:01,400 --> 00:27:03,919
Speaker 1: they're above the media. Oh that's a great stat I

473
00:27:03,960 --> 00:27:06,680
Speaker 1: wish we'd had that to bust out in our October

474
00:27:06,720 --> 00:27:11,800
Speaker 1: episode on driving and the Psychology of driving, because I'm

475
00:27:11,680 --> 00:27:14,560
Speaker 1: I'm reminded of one of the facts that the researchers

476
00:27:14,600 --> 00:27:17,679
Speaker 1: of one paper pointed out, and that was that, you

477
00:27:17,720 --> 00:27:21,480
Speaker 1: know it's driving. Is this cognitively demanding task, and yet

478
00:27:21,840 --> 00:27:24,560
Speaker 1: most of us are able to acquire what you could

479
00:27:24,560 --> 00:27:28,439
Speaker 1: consider mastery of vehicle. Yeah, uh yeah, that's interesting, Like

480
00:27:28,520 --> 00:27:31,720
Speaker 1: it's something that is inherently hard, but we do it

481
00:27:31,880 --> 00:27:35,119
Speaker 1: enough that it becomes easy within the context of human life,

482
00:27:35,160 --> 00:27:37,240
Speaker 1: and then we we think that we are truly better

483
00:27:37,280 --> 00:27:39,679
Speaker 1: than most everyone else at it. It's kind of like

484
00:27:39,680 --> 00:27:43,919
Speaker 1: how playing video games is actually inherently hard as a task,

485
00:27:44,000 --> 00:27:47,119
Speaker 1: but just if you do it enough for recreation, it's

486
00:27:47,119 --> 00:27:50,159
Speaker 1: it's second nature. It's totally easy. Yeah, but it does

487
00:27:50,240 --> 00:27:51,960
Speaker 1: make me think about, like, say, the people who don't

488
00:27:52,040 --> 00:27:56,880
Speaker 1: use turn signals, are they approaching it from the standpoint

489
00:27:56,920 --> 00:27:58,800
Speaker 1: of I am such a great driver, I do not

490
00:27:59,000 --> 00:28:02,000
Speaker 1: need to use turn signals, because they very likely are.

491
00:28:02,960 --> 00:28:05,720
Speaker 1: Because this strikes me as like a true a true

492
00:28:05,760 --> 00:28:09,879
Speaker 1: act of humorists that demands nemesis come forth and and

493
00:28:10,000 --> 00:28:13,040
Speaker 1: smite them in the highway before me, And I guess

494
00:28:13,040 --> 00:28:17,119
Speaker 1: sometimes that's exactly what happens. But the don't be that Nemesis.

495
00:28:17,240 --> 00:28:19,600
Speaker 1: You are not the god known Nemesis. Your road rage

496
00:28:19,640 --> 00:28:21,719
Speaker 1: doesn't solve the problem. And I think that is one

497
00:28:21,760 --> 00:28:24,679
Speaker 1: of the key aspects of a belief, and something like

498
00:28:24,760 --> 00:28:28,680
Speaker 1: Nemesis is ultimately to to keep people from acting out

499
00:28:28,680 --> 00:28:31,560
Speaker 1: as Nemesis themselves, you know, the idea there must be

500
00:28:31,640 --> 00:28:35,919
Speaker 1: some sort of divine retribution for you know, um, you know,

501
00:28:36,600 --> 00:28:40,200
Speaker 1: the individual who who engages in this kind of classical

502
00:28:40,240 --> 00:28:44,680
Speaker 1: hubrists like. Therefore, it's not for me to intervene unless

503
00:28:44,720 --> 00:28:47,480
Speaker 1: I'm gonna you know, actually accused them of such in

504
00:28:47,560 --> 00:28:50,280
Speaker 1: a legal sense right now. Of course, the driving thing

505
00:28:50,360 --> 00:28:52,920
Speaker 1: is just one example, but it's a great example, and

506
00:28:52,960 --> 00:28:56,040
Speaker 1: there are tons of things like this that The better

507
00:28:56,080 --> 00:28:59,240
Speaker 1: than average effect says that, you know, for traits, for

508
00:28:59,360 --> 00:29:03,720
Speaker 1: ability is for attributes that are perceived as positive. Almost

509
00:29:03,760 --> 00:29:06,000
Speaker 1: all of us tend to think we're better than average

510
00:29:06,040 --> 00:29:09,960
Speaker 1: on whatever that metric is. Uh, And and of course

511
00:29:10,040 --> 00:29:11,959
Speaker 1: that can't be the case. You know, half of us

512
00:29:12,000 --> 00:29:14,000
Speaker 1: are going to be below average. A lot of us

513
00:29:14,000 --> 00:29:17,080
Speaker 1: are probably gonna be clustered somewhere around average, given what

514
00:29:17,120 --> 00:29:19,880
Speaker 1: the skill is or what the trade is. And so

515
00:29:19,920 --> 00:29:21,920
Speaker 1: the question this study was looking at was, Okay, how

516
00:29:21,960 --> 00:29:24,600
Speaker 1: strong is this effect? How robust is it? You know?

517
00:29:24,680 --> 00:29:28,440
Speaker 1: So this review includes quote a comprehensive meta analysis of

518
00:29:28,560 --> 00:29:32,200
Speaker 1: better than average studies, including data from a hundred and

519
00:29:32,200 --> 00:29:35,640
Speaker 1: twenty four published articles, two independent samples, in more than

520
00:29:35,720 --> 00:29:40,240
Speaker 1: ninety thousand participants, and what it found is that, unlike

521
00:29:40,320 --> 00:29:43,280
Speaker 1: some classic effects in psychology, which in recent years have

522
00:29:43,360 --> 00:29:48,120
Speaker 1: been undermined by failed replications and fragility revealed by meta analysis,

523
00:29:48,440 --> 00:29:50,640
Speaker 1: the basic version of the better than average effect is

524
00:29:50,640 --> 00:29:54,600
Speaker 1: found to be extremely solid. It is super robust across studies,

525
00:29:55,000 --> 00:29:58,480
Speaker 1: and there's little evidence of publication bias. So the better

526
00:29:58,520 --> 00:30:01,680
Speaker 1: than average effect is deaf only a real fact about

527
00:30:01,800 --> 00:30:04,720
Speaker 1: human brains. But that doesn't mean it always works the

528
00:30:04,760 --> 00:30:07,640
Speaker 1: same for all people. Are all types of evaluations. There

529
00:30:07,640 --> 00:30:11,680
Speaker 1: are tons of interesting little complications revealed here uh and

530
00:30:11,760 --> 00:30:13,479
Speaker 1: discussed in the review, and I think we can come

531
00:30:13,520 --> 00:30:15,400
Speaker 1: back to them in a bit. So a minute ago,

532
00:30:15,480 --> 00:30:19,720
Speaker 1: we were talking about how overconfidence has actually different manifestations

533
00:30:19,760 --> 00:30:21,400
Speaker 1: that are not the same, and you might need to

534
00:30:21,400 --> 00:30:24,520
Speaker 1: study them separately. UH, and I came across a couple

535
00:30:24,560 --> 00:30:28,600
Speaker 1: of interesting papers, both of which had the Berkeley professor

536
00:30:28,680 --> 00:30:31,320
Speaker 1: Don A. Moore as an author. One from two thousand

537
00:30:31,360 --> 00:30:33,480
Speaker 1: and eight with co author Paul J. Heally called The

538
00:30:33,520 --> 00:30:37,800
Speaker 1: Trouble with Overconfidence published in Psychological Review, and one from

539
00:30:37,880 --> 00:30:42,400
Speaker 1: ten with Derek Shots called The Three Faces of Overconfidence

540
00:30:42,640 --> 00:30:46,280
Speaker 1: published in Social and Personality Psychology Compass. Now, both of

541
00:30:46,320 --> 00:30:49,840
Speaker 1: these papers explore the idea that there are actually three

542
00:30:50,040 --> 00:30:54,840
Speaker 1: importantly different kinds of overconfidence which are sometimes lumped together

543
00:30:55,000 --> 00:30:59,719
Speaker 1: in in people talking about the psychological overconfidence bias, and

544
00:31:00,000 --> 00:31:02,440
Speaker 1: they're pointing out that they need to be treated independently,

545
00:31:02,520 --> 00:31:05,640
Speaker 1: studied independently whenever possible. And I think this is a

546
00:31:05,680 --> 00:31:09,640
Speaker 1: really helpful place to further categorize types of overconfidence for

547
00:31:09,640 --> 00:31:12,400
Speaker 1: the rest of our discussion. So are you ready for

548
00:31:12,440 --> 00:31:15,200
Speaker 1: the three types? Let's jump in. Okay, So the three

549
00:31:15,240 --> 00:31:21,920
Speaker 1: types they highlight our overestimation, over placement, and over precision. Now,

550
00:31:22,200 --> 00:31:27,240
Speaker 1: overestimation is thinking that you're better than you are, and specifically,

551
00:31:27,280 --> 00:31:30,520
Speaker 1: this is an overconfidence in your own qualities in an

552
00:31:30,520 --> 00:31:33,520
Speaker 1: objective sense, just out there and you know, floating in

553
00:31:33,560 --> 00:31:36,760
Speaker 1: the void or compared to some objective measure. So if

554
00:31:36,840 --> 00:31:39,080
Speaker 1: you think you have five hundred dollars in the bank,

555
00:31:39,200 --> 00:31:42,960
Speaker 1: but you really have three hundred. That's overestimation. If you

556
00:31:43,120 --> 00:31:46,400
Speaker 1: think you're taller than you are. If you think that

557
00:31:46,480 --> 00:31:49,560
Speaker 1: you never spell words wrong, but in reality you actually

558
00:31:49,560 --> 00:31:52,120
Speaker 1: do spell words wrong all the time. If you think

559
00:31:52,160 --> 00:31:54,440
Speaker 1: you can run a mile in six minutes, but actually

560
00:31:54,440 --> 00:31:57,440
Speaker 1: it will take you fourteen minutes. These are all cases

561
00:31:57,480 --> 00:32:01,000
Speaker 1: of overestimation. These are the sort of things at other

562
00:32:01,080 --> 00:32:04,800
Speaker 1: people or life itself will will call you on. Yeah.

563
00:32:05,480 --> 00:32:08,280
Speaker 1: Typically uh. And then this one's interesting because it it's

564
00:32:08,400 --> 00:32:12,120
Speaker 1: it kind of has runs a spectrum from just pure

565
00:32:12,200 --> 00:32:14,800
Speaker 1: self delusion, like you could if you were just think

566
00:32:15,040 --> 00:32:16,720
Speaker 1: I have a million dollars and you do not have

567
00:32:16,760 --> 00:32:18,800
Speaker 1: a million dollars. That's right. I mean most of the

568
00:32:18,800 --> 00:32:21,400
Speaker 1: time people don't overestimate to that extent, but they might

569
00:32:21,440 --> 00:32:23,800
Speaker 1: overestimate how much money they've got in the bank to

570
00:32:23,880 --> 00:32:26,600
Speaker 1: a small extent, right, or you know, or or I'm

571
00:32:26,600 --> 00:32:31,640
Speaker 1: certainly thinking of smaller examples that that fit into my life,

572
00:32:31,680 --> 00:32:35,800
Speaker 1: like for instance, me overestimating, uh, the amount of time

573
00:32:35,880 --> 00:32:37,520
Speaker 1: I have before I need to pick my son up

574
00:32:37,520 --> 00:32:41,120
Speaker 1: from school, or overestimating the amount of free time I'll

575
00:32:41,160 --> 00:32:43,600
Speaker 1: have to say, you know, watch a terrible B movie

576
00:32:43,680 --> 00:32:46,880
Speaker 1: during a work week. This is very perceptive of you, Robert,

577
00:32:46,880 --> 00:32:49,000
Speaker 1: because actually we'll come back to this later on, I

578
00:32:49,000 --> 00:32:52,280
Speaker 1: think probably in the second episode. That exact thing you mentioned.

579
00:32:52,360 --> 00:32:56,000
Speaker 1: The planning fallacy is one of the most common and

580
00:32:56,040 --> 00:33:01,120
Speaker 1: most robustly demonstrated types of overestimation. People regularly think that

581
00:33:01,200 --> 00:33:04,080
Speaker 1: they will have they will be able to accomplish more

582
00:33:04,240 --> 00:33:08,520
Speaker 1: in less time than they actually can. Yeah. Another example

583
00:33:08,560 --> 00:33:12,160
Speaker 1: would be, you know, when we pack books to bring on, say, vacations,

584
00:33:12,600 --> 00:33:15,880
Speaker 1: oftentimes you can be a little overconfident in either are

585
00:33:16,080 --> 00:33:18,680
Speaker 1: are are reading speed or the amount of time will

586
00:33:18,680 --> 00:33:21,440
Speaker 1: have to to to spend with those books. I know

587
00:33:21,680 --> 00:33:24,240
Speaker 1: that feeling. Yeah, when I'm when I'm traveling, I'm going

588
00:33:24,280 --> 00:33:26,680
Speaker 1: on an airplane or something, I bring like four books

589
00:33:26,720 --> 00:33:28,800
Speaker 1: with me and then I end up reading like three

590
00:33:28,840 --> 00:33:31,800
Speaker 1: pages of one of them. All Right, So that's one

591
00:33:31,840 --> 00:33:33,520
Speaker 1: that we can I think we can all relate to

592
00:33:33,680 --> 00:33:36,520
Speaker 1: for sure. Okay, now the next one that's overestimation. The

593
00:33:36,560 --> 00:33:40,640
Speaker 1: next one is called overplacement, and this is similar but

594
00:33:40,680 --> 00:33:44,600
Speaker 1: a little bit different. Overplacement is the exaggerated belief that

595
00:33:44,680 --> 00:33:48,840
Speaker 1: you are better than others. So it's similar to overestimation,

596
00:33:48,880 --> 00:33:53,200
Speaker 1: accept it involves judging yourself relative to other people instead

597
00:33:53,240 --> 00:33:55,520
Speaker 1: of just judging yourself, kind of floating in the void

598
00:33:55,600 --> 00:33:59,120
Speaker 1: or relative to some objective measure. So this would be like,

599
00:34:00,040 --> 00:34:03,080
Speaker 1: you know, Jeff thinks, okay, if we rated all the

600
00:34:03,120 --> 00:34:06,080
Speaker 1: guys in the office in in order of handsomeness, I

601
00:34:06,080 --> 00:34:08,360
Speaker 1: would be in first place, but in fact, if you

602
00:34:08,400 --> 00:34:11,080
Speaker 1: did that, he would be in sixth place. Uh, he's

603
00:34:11,120 --> 00:34:13,800
Speaker 1: rating himself relative to the other people in the office.

604
00:34:14,400 --> 00:34:17,160
Speaker 1: Or Jeff thinks he is smarter than all of his siblings,

605
00:34:17,200 --> 00:34:20,000
Speaker 1: but actually he is not. Or this is a very

606
00:34:20,040 --> 00:34:23,239
Speaker 1: common one. I think Jeff thinks he works harder than

607
00:34:23,280 --> 00:34:25,600
Speaker 1: other people in the country he lives in, but in

608
00:34:25,680 --> 00:34:28,839
Speaker 1: reality he works fewer than the average number of hours.

609
00:34:28,880 --> 00:34:32,399
Speaker 1: So to use a direct comparison to differentiate between the two,

610
00:34:32,480 --> 00:34:35,800
Speaker 1: overestimation would be thinking you're five nine when you're actually

611
00:34:35,880 --> 00:34:39,640
Speaker 1: five eight. Overplacement would be thinking you're taller than Doug,

612
00:34:39,719 --> 00:34:43,719
Speaker 1: when Doug is actually taller than you. So overplacement really

613
00:34:43,840 --> 00:34:48,640
Speaker 1: entails a broad spectrum of of potentially subjective measures. You

614
00:34:48,680 --> 00:34:51,080
Speaker 1: know who, because who's deciding who is the most handsome

615
00:34:51,080 --> 00:34:56,600
Speaker 1: at the office? Like what is the judging body for this? Subjectivity?

616
00:34:56,680 --> 00:34:58,920
Speaker 1: I think plays a very important role in what types

617
00:34:59,040 --> 00:35:02,440
Speaker 1: of over confidence were most susceptible to right, And we

618
00:35:02,680 --> 00:35:04,799
Speaker 1: can talk more about that as we go on. But yeah,

619
00:35:04,840 --> 00:35:06,919
Speaker 1: I think you're exactly right about that. Though you can

620
00:35:07,160 --> 00:35:10,560
Speaker 1: frame it in terms of objective measures like imagining who

621
00:35:10,680 --> 00:35:13,640
Speaker 1: your coworkers would rank or something like that, like you

622
00:35:13,680 --> 00:35:15,839
Speaker 1: could actually do it and you could guess about how

623
00:35:15,840 --> 00:35:19,239
Speaker 1: it would go. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can. I can

624
00:35:19,239 --> 00:35:20,840
Speaker 1: see that. But it's still it's you know, you're getting

625
00:35:20,840 --> 00:35:23,520
Speaker 1: into questions of like, what are the criteria you know,

626
00:35:23,600 --> 00:35:26,600
Speaker 1: for for judging Jeff's appearance or Jeff's intelligence. That's one too,

627
00:35:26,680 --> 00:35:29,440
Speaker 1: even though we have we have various uh, you know,

628
00:35:29,560 --> 00:35:32,680
Speaker 1: tests and ways of measuring these things, but they're not

629
00:35:32,719 --> 00:35:35,239
Speaker 1: without controversy. They're not without some disagreement. And then we

630
00:35:35,280 --> 00:35:38,840
Speaker 1: get into different types of intelligence, you know. Um, and

631
00:35:39,040 --> 00:35:40,960
Speaker 1: as far as work goes, is it possible that Jeff

632
00:35:40,960 --> 00:35:44,680
Speaker 1: works incredibly hard during an average number of hours? You know?

633
00:35:44,800 --> 00:35:48,160
Speaker 1: Or should we perhaps shame Jeff's workplace for encouraging an

634
00:35:48,200 --> 00:35:51,720
Speaker 1: oppressive work atmosphere where it's just about how many extra

635
00:35:51,800 --> 00:35:55,000
Speaker 1: hours you pour into the day and how attractive you are? Yeah,

636
00:35:55,120 --> 00:36:00,640
Speaker 1: and yeah, and uh, it's so you know, overplacement definitions

637
00:36:00,680 --> 00:36:04,600
Speaker 1: of overconfidence really can get into this ikey territory. I

638
00:36:04,640 --> 00:36:09,239
Speaker 1: feel like classism, racism, sexism, uh meritocracy and and other

639
00:36:09,280 --> 00:36:12,600
Speaker 1: systems that revolve around putting you in your place and

640
00:36:12,640 --> 00:36:14,680
Speaker 1: telling you exactly what you can be and what you

641
00:36:14,719 --> 00:36:17,840
Speaker 1: can accomplish. And it can it can actually itself be

642
00:36:17,880 --> 00:36:20,480
Speaker 1: a form of of sort of the very form of

643
00:36:20,520 --> 00:36:24,440
Speaker 1: hubrists that Nemesis would have punished. Yes, I think exactly right. Yeah,

644
00:36:24,600 --> 00:36:27,240
Speaker 1: that even that form of hubrists we were talking about earlier.

645
00:36:27,280 --> 00:36:30,200
Speaker 1: That's like the you know, the cruelty to other people

646
00:36:30,239 --> 00:36:34,319
Speaker 1: to show your superiority to them, that clearly assumes an

647
00:36:34,320 --> 00:36:38,200
Speaker 1: overplacement thing like you, you are just naturally assuming that

648
00:36:38,239 --> 00:36:41,399
Speaker 1: you are better and more worthy, more deserving of high

649
00:36:41,440 --> 00:36:44,680
Speaker 1: status and superiority than other people are. It's it's a

650
00:36:44,719 --> 00:36:47,880
Speaker 1: relative judgment between you and some other you know, the

651
00:36:47,960 --> 00:36:51,520
Speaker 1: victim of whatever cruelty you're showing. But again, the evidence

652
00:36:51,640 --> 00:36:53,680
Speaker 1: is that we do a lot of this kind of thing,

653
00:36:53,719 --> 00:36:56,359
Speaker 1: and lots of it are are obviously not evil and

654
00:36:56,400 --> 00:36:59,040
Speaker 1: cruel like that. A lot of it just might be like, oh, yeah,

655
00:36:59,040 --> 00:37:01,759
Speaker 1: I think I probably harder than than most of the

656
00:37:01,800 --> 00:37:05,360
Speaker 1: people at my workplace, But actually you don't Yeah, I

657
00:37:05,680 --> 00:37:07,920
Speaker 1: don't know, I just see I feel like there's a

658
00:37:07,920 --> 00:37:11,600
Speaker 1: tremendous potential for cruelty and this, of course, and and

659
00:37:11,640 --> 00:37:14,279
Speaker 1: to the to the extent that like even even more

660
00:37:14,320 --> 00:37:17,799
Speaker 1: moderate versions of it are kind of the you know,

661
00:37:17,840 --> 00:37:21,000
Speaker 1: at the tip of the talent on the overall beast.

662
00:37:21,080 --> 00:37:23,960
Speaker 1: You know. Well, I mean it's definitely the case with

663
00:37:23,960 --> 00:37:26,360
Speaker 1: with the driving example. You know, so the better than

664
00:37:26,440 --> 00:37:29,200
Speaker 1: average effect that I mentioned earlier that there's great, great

665
00:37:29,239 --> 00:37:32,000
Speaker 1: evidence for this would be an example of overplacement, right,

666
00:37:32,040 --> 00:37:36,080
Speaker 1: because you're comparing yourself to other people in general. You're saying, like, no,

667
00:37:36,200 --> 00:37:39,280
Speaker 1: I'm a better than average driver, but nineties something percent

668
00:37:39,320 --> 00:37:41,759
Speaker 1: of drivers think that. Yeah. Okay, well we can we

669
00:37:41,800 --> 00:37:43,759
Speaker 1: can come back to a discussion on this. But let's

670
00:37:43,760 --> 00:37:46,239
Speaker 1: get to the third one. Okay, the third one is

671
00:37:46,280 --> 00:37:48,600
Speaker 1: a little different than the other two. The third one

672
00:37:48,719 --> 00:37:52,040
Speaker 1: is over precision. And this is one of the definitions

673
00:37:52,080 --> 00:37:54,320
Speaker 1: that we talked about, you know, from the More Everyday

674
00:37:54,320 --> 00:37:57,960
Speaker 1: Dictionary understanding. Over precision is being too sure that you

675
00:37:58,000 --> 00:38:00,319
Speaker 1: know the truth. This is what we might also call

676
00:38:00,400 --> 00:38:04,520
Speaker 1: epistemic over confidence. It's being overly certain that your beliefs

677
00:38:04,600 --> 00:38:07,920
Speaker 1: are correct. So, uh, to go back to Jeff, Jeff

678
00:38:08,000 --> 00:38:11,000
Speaker 1: is a hundred percent sure that Vincent Price was in

679
00:38:11,080 --> 00:38:14,720
Speaker 1: Transformers Age of Extinction, Like, definitely, he was the voice

680
00:38:14,719 --> 00:38:16,960
Speaker 1: of one of the robots. He wasn't. But Jeff will

681
00:38:17,040 --> 00:38:19,040
Speaker 1: argue with you about this. He's like, no, I'm sure

682
00:38:19,040 --> 00:38:21,840
Speaker 1: I've looked it up before he was in there. I'm positive.

683
00:38:22,239 --> 00:38:24,719
Speaker 1: Or you ever done a trivia night, You've been on

684
00:38:24,760 --> 00:38:27,759
Speaker 1: the team with somebody like Jeff who's very confident about

685
00:38:27,760 --> 00:38:30,399
Speaker 1: all of his answers. You know, he's positive, write it down.

686
00:38:30,520 --> 00:38:33,520
Speaker 1: He keeps getting stuff wrong. I don't go to a

687
00:38:33,520 --> 00:38:35,960
Speaker 1: lot of trivia nights, but but I can imagine it.

688
00:38:36,040 --> 00:38:39,600
Speaker 1: I used to do trivia night. It's so it's it's

689
00:38:39,640 --> 00:38:42,040
Speaker 1: horrible to have somebody like that on your team who's

690
00:38:42,080 --> 00:38:45,600
Speaker 1: consistently that way. But I also recall the feeling of

691
00:38:45,719 --> 00:38:48,640
Speaker 1: being like that on an individual question and then getting

692
00:38:48,640 --> 00:38:51,239
Speaker 1: it wrong, and like it hurts worse than anything. It's

693
00:38:51,239 --> 00:38:54,000
Speaker 1: the most embarrassing thing ever. Oh yeah, I guess I

694
00:38:54,040 --> 00:38:56,880
Speaker 1: do kind of remember some of that. I don't know.

695
00:38:56,920 --> 00:39:00,400
Speaker 1: I also value Jeff for just pushing the kind reversation

696
00:39:00,440 --> 00:39:02,799
Speaker 1: along and let's go, let's go ahead and select something

697
00:39:02,880 --> 00:39:05,000
Speaker 1: and move on. So we can we can be done

698
00:39:05,000 --> 00:39:07,000
Speaker 1: with this question, right if you don't care about the

699
00:39:07,000 --> 00:39:09,800
Speaker 1: trivia part. Yeah, well, I mean it's like the trivia

700
00:39:09,880 --> 00:39:12,359
Speaker 1: part is just a reason to be there in a bar, right,

701
00:39:12,400 --> 00:39:14,360
Speaker 1: I mean depends on what the prize money is. The

702
00:39:14,400 --> 00:39:20,600
Speaker 1: prize money is generally like what you know. Yeah, Now,

703
00:39:20,600 --> 00:39:24,200
Speaker 1: of course we know that the over precision is hugely

704
00:39:24,280 --> 00:39:27,640
Speaker 1: relevant in in real world context and you know, in

705
00:39:27,960 --> 00:39:31,040
Speaker 1: all kinds of everyday stuff, conversations you have with your friends,

706
00:39:31,120 --> 00:39:34,160
Speaker 1: all the way up to business in politics. Yeah, yeah,

707
00:39:34,239 --> 00:39:37,240
Speaker 1: I was this is interesting, especially on the political um

708
00:39:37,480 --> 00:39:40,160
Speaker 1: uh question. I was looking at a two thousand eighteen

709
00:39:40,239 --> 00:39:43,520
Speaker 1: University of Notre Dame study on over confidence, and it

710
00:39:43,600 --> 00:39:47,239
Speaker 1: pointed out that in order to avoid the social punishment

711
00:39:47,280 --> 00:39:51,120
Speaker 1: of overconfidence, you know, essentially being being called on on

712
00:39:51,360 --> 00:39:55,920
Speaker 1: your your false uh you know, understanding of transformer movies

713
00:39:56,120 --> 00:39:58,480
Speaker 1: or you know, the future of the economy, whatever it

714
00:39:58,480 --> 00:40:01,319
Speaker 1: happens to be U. The authors argue that it helps

715
00:40:01,360 --> 00:40:06,160
Speaker 1: to engage in plausible deniability. So examples include claims that

716
00:40:06,239 --> 00:40:08,719
Speaker 1: cannot be proven wrong in the moment, though they may

717
00:40:08,800 --> 00:40:13,680
Speaker 1: be proven wrong later, or more importantly, using terminology that

718
00:40:13,840 --> 00:40:17,400
Speaker 1: is not subject to close scrutiny. So saying a particular

719
00:40:17,400 --> 00:40:20,080
Speaker 1: war will be a cake walks one example they bring

720
00:40:20,160 --> 00:40:22,520
Speaker 1: up because ultimately, like what's a cake walk? You know

721
00:40:22,560 --> 00:40:24,640
Speaker 1: you can you could make the argument that, Okay, one

722
00:40:24,680 --> 00:40:27,719
Speaker 1: person died, that's not a cake walk. One life is important,

723
00:40:27,960 --> 00:40:29,440
Speaker 1: or if you could bump that, you could you know,

724
00:40:29,600 --> 00:40:33,359
Speaker 1: it's totally in the either the holder. Another example would

725
00:40:33,360 --> 00:40:35,839
Speaker 1: be saying that something will be made great. What does

726
00:40:35,840 --> 00:40:38,080
Speaker 1: it mean to make it great? Like what is what

727
00:40:38,200 --> 00:40:40,360
Speaker 1: is great? Putt put a number value on great? But

728
00:40:40,400 --> 00:40:42,160
Speaker 1: you don't want to put a number value on it

729
00:40:42,200 --> 00:40:44,680
Speaker 1: because then you could be shown to be wrong. So like,

730
00:40:44,719 --> 00:40:48,040
Speaker 1: the more vague you are with your predictions, the harder

731
00:40:48,040 --> 00:40:50,080
Speaker 1: it is for somebody to later come along and show

732
00:40:50,120 --> 00:40:52,239
Speaker 1: that you were wrong. Right. And this is why the

733
00:40:53,080 --> 00:40:55,319
Speaker 1: I think the the trivia example is a is a

734
00:40:55,360 --> 00:40:58,080
Speaker 1: perfect example to to bring out because it is a

735
00:40:58,200 --> 00:41:02,600
Speaker 1: semi artificial situation in which you're really putting your knowledge

736
00:41:02,600 --> 00:41:05,000
Speaker 1: on the line and just you know, and and and

737
00:41:05,160 --> 00:41:07,760
Speaker 1: stating yes, this is what I believe, this is the fact,

738
00:41:08,080 --> 00:41:11,799
Speaker 1: and then you're you're gonna be immediately uh called on

739
00:41:11,880 --> 00:41:13,920
Speaker 1: it if you're wrong. Well, I think you know one

740
00:41:13,920 --> 00:41:16,239
Speaker 1: great example we're talking about politics. You talked about like

741
00:41:16,360 --> 00:41:18,880
Speaker 1: making an economy better in the future, Like you know,

742
00:41:18,960 --> 00:41:21,200
Speaker 1: politicians would always claim to be able to do, and

743
00:41:21,239 --> 00:41:23,880
Speaker 1: they've got different ways that they claim that will happen.

744
00:41:24,080 --> 00:41:26,240
Speaker 1: I mean, I think what people just have to admit

745
00:41:26,280 --> 00:41:29,160
Speaker 1: in reality. So there's a huge amount of uncertainty in

746
00:41:29,160 --> 00:41:32,760
Speaker 1: in economics, in political economics, like you can't actually predict

747
00:41:33,000 --> 00:41:35,120
Speaker 1: what's going to happen in the future economy. You can

748
00:41:35,160 --> 00:41:39,880
Speaker 1: make some very broad, vague generalizations, but you know, you're

749
00:41:39,920 --> 00:41:42,080
Speaker 1: not gonna know when the recession is going to happen.

750
00:41:42,120 --> 00:41:45,080
Speaker 1: You're not gonna know exactly what effect the new tax

751
00:41:45,160 --> 00:41:47,480
Speaker 1: or budget bill is going to have. You can generalize,

752
00:41:47,520 --> 00:41:48,960
Speaker 1: but you know it's hard to know for sure. There's

753
00:41:49,000 --> 00:41:51,480
Speaker 1: tons of uncertainty, right, But that's all. But at the

754
00:41:51,520 --> 00:41:55,160
Speaker 1: same time, it's a horrible campaign slogan, right, Yeah, we'll

755
00:41:55,200 --> 00:41:59,080
Speaker 1: do our best, but you know you can't be Yeah. Yeah,

756
00:41:59,120 --> 00:42:02,040
Speaker 1: so people are going to tenue to gravitate towards these statements,

757
00:42:02,120 --> 00:42:07,839
Speaker 1: especially these vague statements that protect the liar in question. Yeah.

758
00:42:08,040 --> 00:42:10,760
Speaker 1: So I mentioned these two papers that both had Donna

759
00:42:10,880 --> 00:42:13,560
Speaker 1: Moore is one of the authors, and they both of

760
00:42:13,600 --> 00:42:18,440
Speaker 1: them looked at what percentage of the existing papers in

761
00:42:18,480 --> 00:42:22,520
Speaker 1: the scientific literature on over confidence. We're looking at each

762
00:42:22,600 --> 00:42:25,160
Speaker 1: type of over confidence. And so the two thousand and

763
00:42:25,160 --> 00:42:28,040
Speaker 1: eight study found that forty six percent of papers were

764
00:42:28,040 --> 00:42:32,359
Speaker 1: looking at overestimation, uh, thirty two percent were overplacement, and

765
00:42:32,480 --> 00:42:36,120
Speaker 1: twenty two percent were over precision. And then they looked

766
00:42:36,120 --> 00:42:38,600
Speaker 1: at it again on papers that had come out since

767
00:42:38,760 --> 00:42:42,680
Speaker 1: that one in the paper, and they found that sixty

768
00:42:42,719 --> 00:42:47,440
Speaker 1: percent were overestimation overplacement and nineteen percent on over precision.

769
00:42:47,840 --> 00:42:49,560
Speaker 1: One of the main ones we're gonna keep looking at

770
00:42:49,600 --> 00:42:52,080
Speaker 1: in this episode series is about overplacement. It's about the

771
00:42:52,120 --> 00:42:54,480
Speaker 1: better and better than average effect. But I'm struck by

772
00:42:54,480 --> 00:42:57,040
Speaker 1: the fact that in both of these analyzes, the least

773
00:42:57,080 --> 00:42:59,960
Speaker 1: attention is going to over precision, which seems like perhaps

774
00:43:00,080 --> 00:43:04,000
Speaker 1: the most important of these effects to study. Yeah, I mean,

775
00:43:04,040 --> 00:43:07,120
Speaker 1: maybe it's one where we you know, you know certainly

776
00:43:07,160 --> 00:43:09,239
Speaker 1: that you know the study I mentioned is not is

777
00:43:09,280 --> 00:43:13,400
Speaker 1: not really presenting something that is not already intrinsically understood,

778
00:43:13,719 --> 00:43:18,560
Speaker 1: you know, lying and inflating estimation, basically playing the social game.

779
00:43:18,960 --> 00:43:21,160
Speaker 1: I mean, that's what humans do. So maybe we're just

780
00:43:21,480 --> 00:43:26,440
Speaker 1: we have a built in a tendency to safeguard ourselves again,

781
00:43:26,440 --> 00:43:31,200
Speaker 1: except in semi artificial situations like tests and trivia nights.

782
00:43:31,560 --> 00:43:33,839
Speaker 1: I mean, that's a big problem. This is, of course

783
00:43:33,840 --> 00:43:36,560
Speaker 1: a problem in all kinds of arenas of psychology research,

784
00:43:36,600 --> 00:43:40,040
Speaker 1: but it's definitely a big problem in studying over confidence because,

785
00:43:40,040 --> 00:43:42,080
Speaker 1: as several of the authors have been reading have pointed out,

786
00:43:42,080 --> 00:43:46,920
Speaker 1: it can be really hard to recreate the types of

787
00:43:47,040 --> 00:43:50,880
Speaker 1: overconfidence projection scenarios that occur in the real world in

788
00:43:50,920 --> 00:43:53,279
Speaker 1: the lab. All right, on that note, we're gonna take

789
00:43:53,320 --> 00:43:59,960
Speaker 1: one more break, but we'll be right back. Alright, we're back, Okay.

790
00:44:00,000 --> 00:44:02,319
Speaker 1: So I wanted to go back to that paper that

791
00:44:02,400 --> 00:44:04,359
Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier in the episode, the one that just

792
00:44:04,400 --> 00:44:08,080
Speaker 1: came out this year in Psychological Bulletin, the the comprehensive

793
00:44:08,120 --> 00:44:11,360
Speaker 1: review and meta analysis of the existing research on the

794
00:44:11,440 --> 00:44:15,240
Speaker 1: better than average effect, the thing where people just tend

795
00:44:15,280 --> 00:44:17,799
Speaker 1: to think that, you know, they evaluate themselves as better

796
00:44:17,880 --> 00:44:21,080
Speaker 1: than average on all different kinds of qualities. So the

797
00:44:21,120 --> 00:44:24,440
Speaker 1: researchers themselves in this paper from and again that was

798
00:44:24,560 --> 00:44:28,439
Speaker 1: zel at all. Uh. They define it thus, Lee, They say,

799
00:44:28,640 --> 00:44:31,640
Speaker 1: b t a E is the proclivity to rate one's

800
00:44:31,680 --> 00:44:36,399
Speaker 1: current abilities attributes or personality traits more favorably than those

801
00:44:36,480 --> 00:44:39,560
Speaker 1: of the average peer. Now, there's a ton of stuff

802
00:44:39,600 --> 00:44:41,840
Speaker 1: in this paper, but I wanted to talk just briefly

803
00:44:41,880 --> 00:44:44,120
Speaker 1: about a few of its major findings. Of Course, as

804
00:44:44,120 --> 00:44:49,040
Speaker 1: we mentioned earlier, the paper found robust, highly replicable evidence

805
00:44:49,120 --> 00:44:51,920
Speaker 1: for the better than average effects. They did find different

806
00:44:51,920 --> 00:44:56,520
Speaker 1: effect sizes given different scenarios, but generally the effect is there.

807
00:44:56,600 --> 00:44:58,879
Speaker 1: It is really how our brains tend to work most

808
00:44:58,880 --> 00:45:01,480
Speaker 1: of the time. So one thing that I thought was

809
00:45:01,640 --> 00:45:04,120
Speaker 1: very interesting, and I think this ties into some of

810
00:45:04,160 --> 00:45:08,239
Speaker 1: the vagueness that you were just talking about, Robert, abilities

811
00:45:08,400 --> 00:45:12,440
Speaker 1: versus traits. The researchers here found that the better than

812
00:45:12,480 --> 00:45:17,360
Speaker 1: average effect is significantly stronger for personality traits than it

813
00:45:17,480 --> 00:45:21,200
Speaker 1: is for abilities. So, for example, people on average are

814
00:45:21,239 --> 00:45:25,560
Speaker 1: more likely to overplace themselves for semi fixed personal traits

815
00:45:25,640 --> 00:45:30,920
Speaker 1: like intelligence, honesty, or attractiveness, or sense of humor than

816
00:45:30,960 --> 00:45:35,319
Speaker 1: they are to overplace themselves on specific abilities like how

817
00:45:35,360 --> 00:45:37,520
Speaker 1: well will I do on this math test? You know,

818
00:45:37,760 --> 00:45:40,120
Speaker 1: though they show the better than average effect for both.

819
00:45:40,239 --> 00:45:43,719
Speaker 1: The effect is stronger for traits than it is for abilities.

820
00:45:43,960 --> 00:45:48,000
Speaker 1: Does that make sense? Yes? Yeah, and again yeah again.

821
00:45:48,000 --> 00:45:50,960
Speaker 1: It comes back to something that is easily proven, easily

822
00:45:50,960 --> 00:45:52,680
Speaker 1: put into the put to the test, like say your

823
00:45:52,719 --> 00:45:56,920
Speaker 1: ability shooting what free throws in basketball? Uh, you know,

824
00:45:57,080 --> 00:46:00,120
Speaker 1: versus something that is far more subjective. Yeah, And the

825
00:46:00,120 --> 00:46:03,080
Speaker 1: authors they agree they think this is quote likely because

826
00:46:03,160 --> 00:46:07,719
Speaker 1: personality traits are more abstract and less subject to external

827
00:46:07,840 --> 00:46:11,399
Speaker 1: verification than abilities. And I think that's not just like

828
00:46:11,480 --> 00:46:14,359
Speaker 1: in the moment you're making the prediction about yourself, you know,

829
00:46:14,680 --> 00:46:18,080
Speaker 1: not just because you fear embarrassment. I think your estimation

830
00:46:18,160 --> 00:46:22,480
Speaker 1: of your own abilities is probably generally more truly accurate

831
00:46:22,880 --> 00:46:25,600
Speaker 1: because you have more chances in your life to have

832
00:46:25,800 --> 00:46:30,360
Speaker 1: your your self impressions adjusted by meeting obstacles and you know,

833
00:46:30,440 --> 00:46:34,680
Speaker 1: being regulated by them. You actually very rarely run into

834
00:46:34,680 --> 00:46:36,960
Speaker 1: scenarios in your life where somebody can say you're not

835
00:46:37,040 --> 00:46:39,000
Speaker 1: as smart as you think you are, or if they

836
00:46:39,040 --> 00:46:41,319
Speaker 1: can say that you know you just like it's easy

837
00:46:41,400 --> 00:46:43,680
Speaker 1: to dismiss. Yeah, I guess I get the sense that

838
00:46:43,880 --> 00:46:46,040
Speaker 1: you know, certainly as you as you age, there's more

839
00:46:46,040 --> 00:46:50,080
Speaker 1: of an erosion of those those tendencies as opposed to

840
00:46:50,160 --> 00:46:53,600
Speaker 1: just you know, you know, you know, a sharp impact

841
00:46:53,640 --> 00:46:55,880
Speaker 1: on them. Well, that's another funny thing there is a

842
00:46:56,000 --> 00:46:58,880
Speaker 1: role of age in this. The meta analysis revealed that

843
00:46:58,960 --> 00:47:03,279
Speaker 1: the better than average fact was negatively correlated across lifespan.

844
00:47:03,440 --> 00:47:06,920
Speaker 1: So on average, the younger you are, the more likely

845
00:47:06,960 --> 00:47:10,160
Speaker 1: you are to overplace yourself relative to pears. Younger people

846
00:47:11,120 --> 00:47:13,880
Speaker 1: show more better than average effect than older people. Just

847
00:47:14,120 --> 00:47:16,880
Speaker 1: like Aristotle told us again, he pointed out that the

848
00:47:16,960 --> 00:47:19,600
Speaker 1: young and the rich are the ones most likely to

849
00:47:19,600 --> 00:47:22,880
Speaker 1: suffer from hubris. That's funny. I wonder what exactly explains that.

850
00:47:22,960 --> 00:47:26,040
Speaker 1: Could it be that throughout life you're literally just getting

851
00:47:26,040 --> 00:47:29,680
Speaker 1: more information, like you're learning more about your own limitations,

852
00:47:29,719 --> 00:47:33,440
Speaker 1: and that tempers your over overplacement about your own abilities.

853
00:47:33,560 --> 00:47:35,719
Speaker 1: Could be I mean, I mean again, we're kind of

854
00:47:35,760 --> 00:47:39,640
Speaker 1: getting into two tropes here that to varying degrees, uh,

855
00:47:39,760 --> 00:47:43,000
Speaker 1: you know, can be applied to to actual real life individuals.

856
00:47:43,040 --> 00:47:46,040
Speaker 1: But there is that idea of the of of the

857
00:47:46,040 --> 00:47:49,120
Speaker 1: the the prideful, rich individual as being kind of like

858
00:47:49,160 --> 00:47:53,200
Speaker 1: a man baby that that has never never had to

859
00:47:53,239 --> 00:47:55,759
Speaker 1: really be proven wrong, that has just been surrounded by

860
00:47:55,840 --> 00:47:58,640
Speaker 1: yes men for example, that sort of thing. Yeah, but

861
00:47:58,760 --> 00:48:00,480
Speaker 1: I I also do want to it. I mean, we

862
00:48:00,520 --> 00:48:03,320
Speaker 1: don't really know. It's possible that it doesn't have anything

863
00:48:03,360 --> 00:48:05,440
Speaker 1: to do with getting extra information. It could just be

864
00:48:05,520 --> 00:48:08,279
Speaker 1: psychological facts about the young versus the old. Well, I

865
00:48:08,320 --> 00:48:10,880
Speaker 1: mean it could. It could tie into just the basic

866
00:48:11,480 --> 00:48:14,959
Speaker 1: the difference different psychology of of a young person who

867
00:48:15,040 --> 00:48:18,239
Speaker 1: is who is like an arrow leaving the bow, you know,

868
00:48:18,360 --> 00:48:20,640
Speaker 1: Like the whole idea is that, Yeah, when you're young,

869
00:48:20,680 --> 00:48:22,800
Speaker 1: you're bold, you want to break away from your family

870
00:48:22,920 --> 00:48:26,800
Speaker 1: because that's ultimately how you're going. You're you're just obeying

871
00:48:26,800 --> 00:48:29,640
Speaker 1: the genetic mission of the organism. That's true. It could

872
00:48:29,760 --> 00:48:32,560
Speaker 1: It could be that there are stronger pressures in favor

873
00:48:32,600 --> 00:48:36,160
Speaker 1: of inflated confidence in a younger brain. Here is another

874
00:48:36,200 --> 00:48:40,719
Speaker 1: interesting one, negative better than average effect versus positive better

875
00:48:40,760 --> 00:48:44,400
Speaker 1: than average effect the author's right quote. When examining thirty

876
00:48:44,400 --> 00:48:47,920
Speaker 1: six matched comparisons in which other variables were held constant,

877
00:48:47,920 --> 00:48:51,319
Speaker 1: the better than average effect was larger for positive dimensions

878
00:48:51,400 --> 00:48:55,160
Speaker 1: the negative dimensions, which suggests that the motive to self

879
00:48:55,400 --> 00:48:59,800
Speaker 1: enhance or exaggerate one's positive qualities may be more pronounced

880
00:48:59,800 --> 00:49:04,640
Speaker 1: than a motive to self protect or minimize one's negative qualities. Okay,

881
00:49:04,680 --> 00:49:06,960
Speaker 1: so if I give you a chance to rate yourself

882
00:49:07,239 --> 00:49:09,319
Speaker 1: compared to others, I say, you know, how would you

883
00:49:09,400 --> 00:49:13,560
Speaker 1: rate yourself in terms of your honesty? Versus I say,

884
00:49:13,600 --> 00:49:17,359
Speaker 1: how would you rate yourself in terms of deceptiveness? That's

885
00:49:17,400 --> 00:49:19,640
Speaker 1: sort of asking the same question. It seems the better

886
00:49:19,680 --> 00:49:22,520
Speaker 1: than average effect manifests in both like that you're more

887
00:49:22,560 --> 00:49:27,680
Speaker 1: likely to overestimate your honesty underestimate your deceptive nous. But

888
00:49:27,760 --> 00:49:31,799
Speaker 1: the effect is stronger for exaggerating the good trait than

889
00:49:31,840 --> 00:49:35,200
Speaker 1: it is for minimizing the negative trait. I wonder why

890
00:49:35,239 --> 00:49:38,000
Speaker 1: that is. Yeah, I mean, I guess it. You know,

891
00:49:38,160 --> 00:49:39,839
Speaker 1: in a broad sense, it just kind of comes back

892
00:49:39,840 --> 00:49:43,239
Speaker 1: to playing the social game, right of just of presenting

893
00:49:43,239 --> 00:49:46,560
Speaker 1: yourself to your fellow humans. I wonder if it plays

894
00:49:46,600 --> 00:49:49,680
Speaker 1: into our our sense of like having a rich personality,

895
00:49:49,680 --> 00:49:54,400
Speaker 1: that we would imagine ourselves as having strong positive qualities

896
00:49:54,440 --> 00:49:57,359
Speaker 1: and allowing some negative qualities as opposed to you know,

897
00:49:57,480 --> 00:50:00,680
Speaker 1: just uh, not really getting to adventurous with wrong positive

898
00:50:00,719 --> 00:50:06,040
Speaker 1: qualities but denying negative qualities. Yeah, perhaps so. The study

899
00:50:06,080 --> 00:50:09,000
Speaker 1: also they looked at gender. They found no gender association.

900
00:50:09,040 --> 00:50:11,640
Speaker 1: Men and women were equally likely to engage in the

901
00:50:11,680 --> 00:50:14,759
Speaker 1: better than average effect. They looked at culture, and through

902
00:50:15,000 --> 00:50:19,000
Speaker 1: some types of analysis, they didn't find much difference between cultures.

903
00:50:19,040 --> 00:50:21,720
Speaker 1: But they said, to quote, an analysis of eleven matched

904
00:50:21,760 --> 00:50:24,920
Speaker 1: comparisons yielded a significantly larger b T a E in

905
00:50:24,960 --> 00:50:28,880
Speaker 1: the case of European Americans than East Asians. It's possible

906
00:50:28,920 --> 00:50:31,560
Speaker 1: that the better than average effect was larger among European

907
00:50:31,600 --> 00:50:35,520
Speaker 1: Americans because the dimensions were of greater cultural importance to them.

908
00:50:35,560 --> 00:50:38,440
Speaker 1: So like the specific traits being measured in that test

909
00:50:38,960 --> 00:50:42,319
Speaker 1: might have been phrases or traits that were considered more

910
00:50:42,360 --> 00:50:46,759
Speaker 1: important in European American culture as possible um But then

911
00:50:46,840 --> 00:50:50,080
Speaker 1: they also say, indeed, the three studies that considered dimension

912
00:50:50,160 --> 00:50:54,040
Speaker 1: importance found that European Americans exhibited a larger better than

913
00:50:54,080 --> 00:50:57,880
Speaker 1: average effect on individualistic traits, but there was no difference

914
00:50:57,920 --> 00:51:02,600
Speaker 1: between cultural groups on collectivists traits. Moreover, although the better

915
00:51:02,600 --> 00:51:05,720
Speaker 1: than average effect varied by culture, it was generally robust

916
00:51:05,760 --> 00:51:09,040
Speaker 1: in both European Americans and East Asians, which supports the

917
00:51:09,040 --> 00:51:13,080
Speaker 1: position that self enhancement is universal. You know, did these

918
00:51:13,120 --> 00:51:16,520
Speaker 1: foundings do remind me of our previous discussions on how

919
00:51:17,680 --> 00:51:21,600
Speaker 1: the how, how how the East and West differ to

920
00:51:21,680 --> 00:51:24,600
Speaker 1: certain degrees in how we view you know, the nature

921
00:51:24,640 --> 00:51:27,640
Speaker 1: of character, whether it is something that emerges internally or

922
00:51:27,719 --> 00:51:31,200
Speaker 1: it is subject to the in the forces of environment

923
00:51:31,280 --> 00:51:34,920
Speaker 1: and culture. Yes, uh yeah, the the the greater emphasis

924
00:51:34,960 --> 00:51:38,640
Speaker 1: on context, and this also seems to tie into Actually,

925
00:51:38,680 --> 00:51:41,560
Speaker 1: I think this was the context in which that discussion happened,

926
00:51:41,880 --> 00:51:45,200
Speaker 1: was when we were talking about fundamental attribution error. Uh

927
00:51:45,239 --> 00:51:48,400
Speaker 1: and the fact that it seemed like by some measures,

928
00:51:48,520 --> 00:51:52,239
Speaker 1: East Asian cultures were less prone to the fundamental attribution

929
00:51:52,320 --> 00:51:55,680
Speaker 1: error than like European Americans were, right, yeah, though they

930
00:51:55,680 --> 00:51:57,960
Speaker 1: were still prone to it. It just basically the numbers

931
00:51:57,960 --> 00:51:59,840
Speaker 1: were a little different between East and West, and that

932
00:52:00,000 --> 00:52:02,160
Speaker 1: seems to be the case here too, Like both are

933
00:52:02,200 --> 00:52:04,319
Speaker 1: prone to the better than average effect, but by some

934
00:52:04,400 --> 00:52:08,880
Speaker 1: measures it's a little stronger among European Americans, especially on

935
00:52:09,000 --> 00:52:12,800
Speaker 1: individualistic traits. Here's one more that I thought was interesting.

936
00:52:13,239 --> 00:52:16,919
Speaker 1: They found that there was a medium sized positive association

937
00:52:17,000 --> 00:52:20,520
Speaker 1: between the better than average effect and both self esteem

938
00:52:20,840 --> 00:52:25,920
Speaker 1: and life satisfaction quote. As anticipated, Therefore, the tendency to

939
00:52:25,960 --> 00:52:29,480
Speaker 1: perceive oneself as above average was associated with greater self

940
00:52:29,600 --> 00:52:33,360
Speaker 1: esteem and happiness. However, the moderate size of these associations

941
00:52:33,360 --> 00:52:36,200
Speaker 1: indicates that the better than average effect is not redundant

942
00:52:36,239 --> 00:52:39,239
Speaker 1: with self esteem and happiness, so they're saying, it's it's

943
00:52:39,239 --> 00:52:41,640
Speaker 1: clearly not the case that just like self esteem and

944
00:52:41,680 --> 00:52:44,400
Speaker 1: happiness are the better than average effects, that it's not

945
00:52:44,440 --> 00:52:47,759
Speaker 1: just a one for one thing, but there is a correlation. Yeah,

946
00:52:47,800 --> 00:52:50,760
Speaker 1: I imagine that that some listeners might might have already

947
00:52:50,800 --> 00:52:53,560
Speaker 1: been been thinking on this a little bit, because we

948
00:52:53,640 --> 00:52:55,759
Speaker 1: spent a fair amount of of time here in this

949
00:52:55,840 --> 00:52:59,320
Speaker 1: episode sort of driving home the fact that you're probably

950
00:52:59,320 --> 00:53:01,600
Speaker 1: not as good as you think you are. Well, you

951
00:53:01,680 --> 00:53:05,000
Speaker 1: might be about some things, about some things, but uh,

952
00:53:05,040 --> 00:53:07,480
Speaker 1: you know, the the ultimate message is kind of depressing.

953
00:53:08,320 --> 00:53:11,200
Speaker 1: You know. It's kind of like, oh, well, I I

954
00:53:11,239 --> 00:53:13,440
Speaker 1: thought I was an honest person, but I don't know.

955
00:53:13,520 --> 00:53:15,879
Speaker 1: Joe said, I'm not, so I didn't say, I guess

956
00:53:15,920 --> 00:53:20,560
Speaker 1: I should feel bad about myself. Come on, But that

957
00:53:20,680 --> 00:53:22,719
Speaker 1: is not the message of this episode. No. I think

958
00:53:22,760 --> 00:53:26,400
Speaker 1: it's still like it's to to be wary about positive

959
00:53:26,440 --> 00:53:29,200
Speaker 1: self impressions. It's not that you know you are actually

960
00:53:29,280 --> 00:53:32,520
Speaker 1: really bad. It's that our brains on average, have a

961
00:53:32,560 --> 00:53:35,960
Speaker 1: tendency to inflate positive self impressions, especially when it comes

962
00:53:35,960 --> 00:53:39,239
Speaker 1: to things like personality traits. It's worth being aware of

963
00:53:39,280 --> 00:53:42,080
Speaker 1: that fact about ourselves and as it applies to others. Obviously,

964
00:53:42,080 --> 00:53:43,960
Speaker 1: it's not something that applies just to you. This is

965
00:53:43,960 --> 00:53:47,000
Speaker 1: something that appears to apply to human beings, right, Yeah,

966
00:53:47,000 --> 00:53:48,719
Speaker 1: so I guess one way to look at it would be, say,

967
00:53:48,760 --> 00:53:52,400
Speaker 1: on the subject of generosity, like if it's not to say, Okay,

968
00:53:52,600 --> 00:53:54,400
Speaker 1: Joe said, I'm not as generous as I as I

969
00:53:54,400 --> 00:53:56,520
Speaker 1: think I am, and I should feel depressed over this,

970
00:53:56,600 --> 00:53:59,280
Speaker 1: But more we should realize that, Okay, if we value

971
00:53:59,320 --> 00:54:04,120
Speaker 1: our generosity, d that's that's great. We may very well

972
00:54:04,160 --> 00:54:08,720
Speaker 1: be overestimating our generosity and therefore that's just a reason

973
00:54:08,760 --> 00:54:12,759
Speaker 1: to lean into the thing you value. Yeah. Another way

974
00:54:12,760 --> 00:54:16,160
Speaker 1: to do it is to is to make yourself perception

975
00:54:16,239 --> 00:54:21,959
Speaker 1: of your positive traits uh dependent on real world performance. Uh. So,

976
00:54:22,080 --> 00:54:24,840
Speaker 1: for example, if you want to think I'm a generous person,

977
00:54:24,920 --> 00:54:28,480
Speaker 1: don't just trust your gut about these free floating positive qualities.

978
00:54:28,760 --> 00:54:31,560
Speaker 1: Prove it to yourself, right, you have to do things

979
00:54:31,600 --> 00:54:34,320
Speaker 1: that make it true. Yeah, what would a generous person

980
00:54:34,360 --> 00:54:37,600
Speaker 1: do in this scenario? And then do it? Yeah? All right, Well,

981
00:54:37,600 --> 00:54:40,160
Speaker 1: we're gonna go ahead and cut this episode off here,

982
00:54:40,400 --> 00:54:42,680
Speaker 1: but we will be back in the next episode to

983
00:54:42,719 --> 00:54:46,120
Speaker 1: continue discussions of over confidence. Uh. You know what, it

984
00:54:46,120 --> 00:54:49,200
Speaker 1: means from psychological standpoint, will also get into a little

985
00:54:49,200 --> 00:54:53,160
Speaker 1: bit into the business scenario here, which is which I

986
00:54:53,360 --> 00:54:55,520
Speaker 1: have to say, is a lot more interesting than it sounds. Well,

987
00:54:55,600 --> 00:54:59,960
Speaker 1: you're you saying there's over confidence in business. No even

988
00:55:00,000 --> 00:55:02,879
Speaker 1: not believe it or not there is so well, we'll

989
00:55:02,920 --> 00:55:06,600
Speaker 1: discuss that as well in the next episode. In the meantime,

990
00:55:06,640 --> 00:55:08,560
Speaker 1: if you want to check out other episodes of Stuff

991
00:55:08,560 --> 00:55:10,360
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind, such as you know some of

992
00:55:10,400 --> 00:55:13,440
Speaker 1: these episodes we've been referring back to here, or if

993
00:55:13,480 --> 00:55:15,920
Speaker 1: you want to check out Invention, our other show, you

994
00:55:15,920 --> 00:55:18,920
Speaker 1: can find them both wherever you get your podcasts. If

995
00:55:18,960 --> 00:55:20,560
Speaker 1: you've got a Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com,

996
00:55:20,600 --> 00:55:22,760
Speaker 1: that will shoot you over to the I heart listing

997
00:55:22,960 --> 00:55:25,160
Speaker 1: for this show, but you can find us anywhere and

998
00:55:25,200 --> 00:55:28,080
Speaker 1: wherever that happens to be. Just make sure you rate, review,

999
00:55:28,160 --> 00:55:32,120
Speaker 1: and subscribe because those actions really help us out in

1000
00:55:32,160 --> 00:55:34,600
Speaker 1: the long run. Huge thanks as always to our excellent

1001
00:55:34,600 --> 00:55:37,520
Speaker 1: audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to

1002
00:55:37,560 --> 00:55:39,800
Speaker 1: get in touch with us with feedback on this episode

1003
00:55:39,880 --> 00:55:41,920
Speaker 1: or any other, to suggest a topic for the future,

1004
00:55:42,200 --> 00:55:44,120
Speaker 1: or just to say hi, you can email us at

1005
00:55:44,280 --> 00:55:55,880
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1006
00:55:55,920 --> 00:55:57,480
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind is a production of I Heart

1007
00:55:57,520 --> 00:56:00,160
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1008
00:56:00,280 --> 00:56:02,880
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1009
00:56:02,920 --> 00:56:13,160
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