Speaker 1: In tedious exile. Now too long detained Dadalus languished for
Speaker 1: his native land. The sea foreclosed his flight. Yet thus
Speaker 1: he said, though earth and water, in subjection laid o
Speaker 1: cruel minos thy dominion be, will go through air, for
Speaker 1: sure the air is free. Then to new arts his
Speaker 1: cunning thought applies, and to improve the work of nature,
Speaker 1: tries a row of quills in gradual order, placed rise
Speaker 1: by degrees in length from first to last, as on
Speaker 1: a cliff. The ascending thicket grows or different reeds the
Speaker 1: rural pipe compose. Along the middle runs a twine of flax.
Speaker 1: The bottom stems are join'd by pliant wax, thus well compact.
Speaker 1: A hollow bending brings the fine composure into real wings.
Speaker 1: His boy, young Icarus, that near him, stood unthinking of
Speaker 1: his fate, with smiles, pursued the floating feathers which the
Speaker 1: moving air bore loosely from the ground and wasted here
Speaker 1: and there. Or with the wax impertinently played, and with
Speaker 1: his childish tricks, the great design delayed. The final master stroke.
Speaker 1: At last imposed, and now the neat machine completely closed.
Speaker 1: Fitting his pinions. On a flight, he tries and hung
Speaker 1: self balanced and the beaten skies. Then thus instructs his child,
Speaker 1: My boy, take care to win your course along the
Speaker 1: middle air. If low the surge is wet your flagging plumes.
Speaker 1: If high the sun the melting wax consumed, steer between both,
Speaker 1: nor to the northern skies, nor south orion. Turn your
Speaker 1: giddy eyes, but follow me. Let me before you lay
Speaker 1: rules for the flight, and mock the pathless way. Then,
Speaker 1: teaching with a fond concern his son, he took the
Speaker 1: untried wings and fixed them on, but fixed with trembling hands,
Speaker 1: and as he speaks, the tears rolled gently down his
Speaker 1: age cheeks. Then kissed and in his arms embraced him fast,
Speaker 1: but knew not this embrace must be the last. And
Speaker 1: mounting upward as he wings his flight back on his charge,
Speaker 1: he turns an aching sight as parent birds when their
Speaker 1: first callow care leave the high ness to tempt the
Speaker 1: liquid air, then cheers him on and oft with fatal art,
Speaker 1: reminds the stripling to perform his part. These as the
Speaker 1: angler at the silent brook, or mountain shepherd leaning on
Speaker 1: his crook, or gaping plowman from the veil descries, they
Speaker 1: stare and view them with religious eyes and straight conclude
Speaker 1: them gods, since none but they, through their own azure skies,
Speaker 1: could find a way. Now delos Paros on the left
Speaker 1: are Scene and Samos, favored by Jove's haughty queen. Upon
Speaker 1: the right the isle of Lebenthos, named and fair Calumny
Speaker 1: for its honey famed. When now the boy whose childish
Speaker 1: thoughts aspire to lofty your raims and make him ramble higher,
Speaker 1: grown wild and wanton, more emboldened, flies far from his guide,
Speaker 1: and soars among the skies. The softening wax that felt
Speaker 1: a nearer son dissolved a pace and soon began to run.
Speaker 1: The youth in vain, His melting pinions shakes, his feathers
Speaker 1: gone no longer air. He takes oh Father, Father, as
Speaker 1: he strove to cry down to the sea. He tumbled
Speaker 1: from on high and found his fate, yet still subsists
Speaker 1: by fame among those waters that retain his name. Welcome
Speaker 1: to Stuff to Blow your Mind? A production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radios How Stuff Works? Hey, are you welcome to
Speaker 1: stuff to blow your Mind? My name is Robert Lamb
Speaker 1: and I'm Joe McCormick. And that was, of course from
Speaker 1: Ovid's metamorphoses the Garthen Dryden translation the story of Daedalus
Speaker 1: and Icarus one of our favorites that uh, actually i'd
Speaker 1: say is a sort of recurring theme on invention as well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was one of our I believe we wanted to
Speaker 1: originally call the show Datalists in fact, uh, and it
Speaker 1: was decided that that was to obscure. The business masters
Speaker 1: were like, people will not know what that is. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, I enjoyed reading through this, uh, this excerpt
Speaker 1: from from ovid here because even though we have talked
Speaker 1: at length about Datalus and nicaras before and or at
Speaker 1: least in passing, you know, bringing up to sort of
Speaker 1: the metaphor and the invention and talked about we've talked
Speaker 1: about data lists, other uh inventions and myth as well.
Speaker 1: But this, this reading, I think is is rather nice
Speaker 1: because it also captures the humanity of the characters and
Speaker 1: and certainly as a father, you know, I can certainly
Speaker 1: relate to some of these feelings as he's trying to
Speaker 1: prepare his boy for the challenges ahead. There's real passion,
Speaker 1: and there's passion in the different concerns of the father
Speaker 1: and the son. The father wants freedom, wants escape, and
Speaker 1: he wants safety, and the sun wants fun. It's basically
Speaker 1: um Cat Stephen's song father and Son, but in in
Speaker 1: in mythic form. Now, there are a lot of themes
Speaker 1: you could get into when discussing the story of Icarus
Speaker 1: and Deadla. So one of the main themes, of course,
Speaker 1: that people draw out of this story is the theme
Speaker 1: of over confidence and over confidence leading to disaster, right, yes,
Speaker 1: and so that is going to be our main focus
Speaker 1: for these episodes. But we're pretty excited about it. We
Speaker 1: did no research and and we think we can we
Speaker 1: can probably get four or five episodes out of this.
Speaker 1: So we can just wing it, you know, you know,
Speaker 1: winging it. Yes, yes, that is what it is. I
Speaker 1: think that is. I wonder if that's where the phrase
Speaker 1: comes from. You're just winging it like chorus. I don't know. Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: if you got lost in the English couplets there of
Speaker 1: Garth and Dryden and so forth, Robert, could you just
Speaker 1: give a brief summary of what actually happens in the
Speaker 1: myth of Vicarus and Dedalus. Yeah, yeah, I'm just breaking
Speaker 1: it down to the major plot points. Year. Um, these
Speaker 1: these are artificial wings crafted by the master engineer Datalus,
Speaker 1: and then he, uh, he helps his son Icarus put
Speaker 1: them on. They're using these to escape from Minos. He
Speaker 1: who is the master of the Maze and the master
Speaker 1: of the minotaur um and uh so you know, he
Speaker 1: puts these these amazing wings on him. But then Icarus
Speaker 1: flies too close to the sun. The rays melt the
Speaker 1: wax and he falls to his death. And he's been
Speaker 1: specifically warned, yeah, don't fly too close to the sun.
Speaker 1: It's gonna melt the wax. You're gonna plummet and fall.
Speaker 1: But he still flies too high. He flies beyond the
Speaker 1: the his ability, flies beyond the engineering constraints of the wings,
Speaker 1: and perishes for it. I love the word choice in
Speaker 1: the poem in the English version. He wants to ramble higher.
Speaker 1: He's he's having fun. He's out there. He's like, it'll
Speaker 1: be fine. Yeah. And I think one of the key
Speaker 1: things to keep in mind about this myth, if we're
Speaker 1: looking at it and focusing on over confidence, is that
Speaker 1: Datalus is a master at createing these wings, and Hi
Speaker 1: Charas is no slouch at flying with them, obviously, so
Speaker 1: it's not a you know, an Emperor's new clothes scenario
Speaker 1: where one is confident, you know, with without any underlying skill,
Speaker 1: Like there's plenty of skill to go around here, but
Speaker 1: the ideas that charas As sends just a little too high.
Speaker 1: He he goes to that place that he has worn
Speaker 1: two road to to avoid, and that is his downfall.
Speaker 1: Even though there is a real basis for confidence, the
Speaker 1: confidence in the brain exceeds the confidence warranted by circumstances.
Speaker 1: But then that becomes the whole focus of the myth. Right,
Speaker 1: nobody stops to admire, like, hey, datal Is really built
Speaker 1: some amazing wings and Icarus was really great at flying them.
Speaker 1: Now we just focus on the fact that he dies
Speaker 1: and falls into the ocean. And this very idea of
Speaker 1: like overconfidence that you know that that meets a tragic
Speaker 1: end is such a powerful and common theme of myths
Speaker 1: and drama throughout history. Yeah, myths and drama and of
Speaker 1: course human histories, which of course involve both myth making
Speaker 1: and uh and dramatic storytelling telling. But there's just so
Speaker 1: much of it. It's such a frequent trope that on
Speaker 1: one hand, it's easy to just not think about it,
Speaker 1: like this is just what happens in our stories. So,
Speaker 1: you know, we either can't get enough of tales of
Speaker 1: hubrists and uh and over confidence, or it's just such
Speaker 1: a common feature of human enterprise and ambition that is
Speaker 1: just a necessary plot point in almost any tale worth telling. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's not a coincidence that so many figures
Speaker 1: from history display hubris and overconfidence, because I think overconfidence
Speaker 1: is the kind of trait that, in a lot of
Speaker 1: cases specifically is what gets you into the history books
Speaker 1: and uh. And from a historical point of view, um,
Speaker 1: you know, granted, is not always a simple matter, because
Speaker 1: you know, when you encounter the all too frequent tales
Speaker 1: of an overconfident but a net ruler, you have to
Speaker 1: consider that, you know, uh, these you know, history is
Speaker 1: told by the victors, and this is likely the story
Speaker 1: about about about a deposed ruler. But sure enough, you
Speaker 1: look at any um you know history of kings and emperors,
Speaker 1: you will inevitably find multiple examples of someone who has
Speaker 1: pointed out for their overconfidence like this, this ruler became
Speaker 1: too overconfident and that was their downfall. And of course
Speaker 1: the world of mythic expression is just full of wonderful
Speaker 1: examples to chew on. One that certainly comes to mind
Speaker 1: in Judaeo Christian traditions and especially in Milton's literary treatment
Speaker 1: of the character, is that of Satan, like the classic
Speaker 1: character who who you know, was prideful enough to rebel
Speaker 1: against the all powerful creator God and uh and then
Speaker 1: falls for it. And that is actually a concept from
Speaker 1: the Bible itself, from from the tanaka. I mean, in
Speaker 1: Proverbs sixteen eighteen, you get pride go with before destruction,
Speaker 1: the haughty spirit before a fall. Yeah. Uh. And then
Speaker 1: of course we already talked about about Icarus. But yeah,
Speaker 1: You'll find plenty of examples of God's smiting immortal underlings
Speaker 1: or mere mortals for find them, and often their central
Speaker 1: crime is basically they that they dared to think themselves
Speaker 1: greater than they are. They overstepped their status in place
Speaker 1: in the grand hierarchy. In fact, in addition to Icarus,
Speaker 1: I think at least two tales are worth pointing out.
Speaker 1: But these are by far not the only stories of
Speaker 1: God's punishing mortals and immortals for overstepping their boundaries. One
Speaker 1: of my favorites is the Web of Arachne. So this
Speaker 1: is this is a wonderful tale in which you have
Speaker 1: the mortal Arachne, who challenges Athena, goddess of wisdom and crafts,
Speaker 1: to a weaving contest, which, of course is always a
Speaker 1: terrible thing to do. Never challenge a god to a
Speaker 1: contest unless it's a fiddle contest, and that god is
Speaker 1: the devil and you're down in Georgia, right, and then yes,
Speaker 1: maybe you can pull it off in the in that
Speaker 1: in in that specific scenario. Um but but but in
Speaker 1: this scenario, you know, you're not dealing with the devil,
Speaker 1: You're dealing with the goddess Athena. And so Athena, as
Speaker 1: one i'd expect, crafts a perfect tapestry, resplendent and depictions
Speaker 1: of the gods punishing mortals for their hubrists and Arachne
Speaker 1: it creates unequally awesome tapestry. But hers depicts all the
Speaker 1: various ways that the gods have manipulated and tormented mortals. Um,
Speaker 1: so she's getting a little fresh. Yeah. Well, they're both
Speaker 1: putting a lot of, uh, you know, a lot of
Speaker 1: emotion into their their work here there, But they're both
Speaker 1: kind of taunting the other with their subject matter. The
Speaker 1: problem is Arachne is immortal, and Athena is a god.
Speaker 1: Uh And of course the Greek gods are not known
Speaker 1: for their reasonable demeanor, right they don't, and so Athena
Speaker 1: doesn't play fair. Instead, she becomes enraged, She destroys Arachne's work,
Speaker 1: beats her, and leaves her to suicidal shame. And after
Speaker 1: she has died, Arachne becomes the spiders of Earth. And
Speaker 1: that's kind of the origin story for spiders and and
Speaker 1: so forth biological ideological myth. Right, it tells why spiders weave. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But but one of the interesting wrinkles in all of
Speaker 1: this is that both tapestries are accurate from their creator's
Speaker 1: points of view, that the ending to this story is
Speaker 1: either yet another example of the god's cruelty or another
Speaker 1: example of mortals being rightfully punished for their pride. Um.
Speaker 1: And again, much like the chorus scenario, Arachne is highly skilled,
Speaker 1: like she crafts of a work that rivals or even equals,
Speaker 1: or perhaps even surpasses the work of the goddess. Uh.
Speaker 1: So she may not have overstepped her ability, but she
Speaker 1: certainly oversteps her place. Right, it's a different kind of pride.
Speaker 1: She wasn't overconfident and how good of a weaver she is.
Speaker 1: She was overconfident in what she could get away with
Speaker 1: saying yeah. And then of course another example, in one
Speaker 1: that we come back to again and again on the show,
Speaker 1: is that of Prometheus. Uh. Prometheus, the Titan, having stolen
Speaker 1: from the gods the coreld a fire, defied them in
Speaker 1: giving this secret to the mortals. Uh. He has then
Speaker 1: punished for all eternity for this sin. Yeah. Another one
Speaker 1: that comes to my mind is the myth of Feton,
Speaker 1: the son of the god Helio. So remember he wants
Speaker 1: to pilot the chariot. He's like, I want to get
Speaker 1: in the chariot, but uh, he's warned it would not
Speaker 1: be a good idea. And he's like, no, no, I
Speaker 1: can handle it. I can Yeah, I can drive. And
Speaker 1: he gets in there and the horses I don't remember
Speaker 1: exactly what happens, like the horses don't recognize him or something.
Speaker 1: They go nuts and the chariot crashes into the earth
Speaker 1: or something or there there's general disaster. Right. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: a good one. And then there there are various other
Speaker 1: tales as well that that we could we could we
Speaker 1: could focus on because again it's just a recurring theme
Speaker 1: in Greek mythology. But but also you know other belief
Speaker 1: systems as well, like, for instance, just briefly, there's a
Speaker 1: a fun Chinese example of pride and punishment in which
Speaker 1: the Yellow Emperor makes use of of ying long the
Speaker 1: responding dragon to execute the God of war to you
Speaker 1: after we dared to raise arms against the Yellow Emperor.
Speaker 1: So there that would be a tale of the god
Speaker 1: of war being overconfident in his ability to overthrow the king. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so many times you do see a more of a
Speaker 1: militant example of this, you know, the idea that, oh,
Speaker 1: you think you can defeat the god, but you cannot,
Speaker 1: and you're punished for that um either and then other
Speaker 1: times it's a contest or something to that effect. One
Speaker 1: thing that I love in the Greek conception of of
Speaker 1: hubris is that there was a goddess that existed purely
Speaker 1: to splatter people who displayed arrogance and over confidence. And
Speaker 1: this was the goddess Nemesis, who I really think we
Speaker 1: we I wish we had a Nemesis today. Uh So
Speaker 1: I found I was looking around for stuff about Nemesis,
Speaker 1: and I found this amazing thing that was a a
Speaker 1: hymn to the goddess Nemesis, composed by somebody from ancient
Speaker 1: Greece named Mesomades. And this is a translation by somebody
Speaker 1: named yelled. Uh. So I've got to read this. This,
Speaker 1: this boiled my brain. Winged Nemesis, turner of the scales
Speaker 1: of life, blue eyed goddess, daughter of Justice, who, with
Speaker 1: your unbending bridle, dominate the vain arrogance of men and
Speaker 1: loathing man's fatal vanity, obliterate black envy. Beneath your wheel,
Speaker 1: unstable and leaving no imprint, The fate of men is
Speaker 1: tossed you, who come unnoticed in an instant to subdue
Speaker 1: the insolent head. You measure life with your hand, and
Speaker 1: with frowning brows hold the yolke. Hail, blessed, immortal Goddess.
Speaker 1: Winged Nemesis, turning the scales of life, imperishable and Holy
Speaker 1: Goddess Nemesis, victory of unfurled wings, powerful, infallible, who shares
Speaker 1: the altar with justice, and furious at human pride, casts
Speaker 1: a man into the abyss of Tartarus. Yeah. When I
Speaker 1: read that at home the other day, I like literally
Speaker 1: exclaimed out loud um While I'm not usually a big
Speaker 1: like cast people into Tartarus kind of guy. You know,
Speaker 1: I don't love like eternal torment and hell and all that.
Speaker 1: I do kind of wish for a nemesis sometimes to
Speaker 1: like fly in, scoop up the fatally vein and arrogant
Speaker 1: leaders who you know, inflict their over confidence on everybody else,
Speaker 1: and kind of just toss him under the wheel. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I too love this concept of a nemesis. Uh. It's
Speaker 1: also a frequent subject of paintings. You'll see a lot
Speaker 1: of you know, European paintings of a nemesis that really
Speaker 1: uh to take advantage of these angelic properties that are
Speaker 1: described here, this winged uh female form that is beautiful
Speaker 1: and terrifying, an embodiment of something kind of like karma,
Speaker 1: you know, divine retribution, the goddess that comes to avenge
Speaker 1: against you when you become too prideful. Though I do
Speaker 1: think it's actually more complicated than we usually think of
Speaker 1: hubris in the modern sense, right, because like the way
Speaker 1: we use hubris, it really does just generally mean like pride, arrogance,
Speaker 1: and overconfidence. But I think you were looking into something
Speaker 1: about how the ancient Greeks had a more complicated and
Speaker 1: specific yeah, define it gets it gets interesting. I was
Speaker 1: looking at at the Oxford Classical Dictionary, and as in
Speaker 1: our Fisher pointed out, it was really more of intentionally
Speaker 1: dishonoring behavior. And the author points to Aristotle is providing
Speaker 1: a solid understanding of Greek hubrists. So Aristotle contends that
Speaker 1: hubris was quote doing and saying things at which the
Speaker 1: victim incurs shame, not in order that one may achieve
Speaker 1: anything other than what he's done, but simply to get
Speaker 1: pleasure from it. For those who act in return for
Speaker 1: something do not commit hubris, they avenge themselves. The cause
Speaker 1: of the pleasure for those committing hubrists is that by
Speaker 1: harming people, they think themselves superior. That is why the
Speaker 1: young and the rich of humoristic as they think they
Speaker 1: are superior when they commit hubris. This is so it's
Speaker 1: just sadism. Yeah, basically, it's just like being mean for
Speaker 1: mean sake and being like hurting people in a dishonorable way.
Speaker 1: And I think specifically because it makes you feel superior, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: And and it is also worth noting that like this
Speaker 1: is apparently really key to the system of honor and
Speaker 1: dishonor that which really important to Greek society. That's right,
Speaker 1: I think. I mean one thing that's kind of hard
Speaker 1: to understand is like when you read ancient Greek literature,
Speaker 1: you might notice that they seem to have a different
Speaker 1: idea of morality than we usually do, like for them
Speaker 1: that they're concepts of morals often have more to do
Speaker 1: with with things that are considered honorable versus things that
Speaker 1: are considered say, uh, for the good of others. Uh.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's almost what you were just reading
Speaker 1: reminds me of the classical Greek theory of humor, which
Speaker 1: we talked about in our Plato sex Macina episode. So
Speaker 1: that Plato and Aristotle basically said, this is hard to
Speaker 1: imagine because it sounds so so hateful, But you know,
Speaker 1: these ancient Greek philosophers are like, things are funny because
Speaker 1: they make you realize you're superior to other people. Uh So.
Speaker 1: Plato in his Philibus dialogue is discussing the nature of pleasure,
Speaker 1: and he says, you know, there are different kinds of pleasures.
Speaker 1: He's talking about why pleasures of the mind are better
Speaker 1: than pleasures of the flesh, of the of the body.
Speaker 1: And he's talking about laughing at people, and he says,
Speaker 1: you know, one of the main things that's great about
Speaker 1: laughing at people is that you can laugh at people
Speaker 1: who don't recognize their own misfortune. So there are people
Speaker 1: who are stupid but they think they're smart, or there
Speaker 1: are people who are ugly but they think they're handsome,
Speaker 1: and that's really funny, right, Yeah, But in in in
Speaker 1: this it gets more specifically into the use of violence.
Speaker 1: Um and Hubrews was taken very seriously in Athens, as
Speaker 1: there was a law of hubris. In this context, I've
Speaker 1: seen it define more specifically and in this kind of
Speaker 1: this is basically what Aristotle said, But an even shorter
Speaker 1: version would be the intentional use of violence to humiliate
Speaker 1: or degrade again, kind of a sadism, things like I'm
Speaker 1: better than you and I'll show you by hurting you.
Speaker 1: And and in Athens, unlike murder charges which could only
Speaker 1: be brought forth by the family of the victim, charges
Speaker 1: of hubrists, like charges of treason or in pity, could
Speaker 1: be leveled by anyone at anyone. So it's we're talking
Speaker 1: about shameful conduct that ultimately threatens the shame on or
Speaker 1: building blocks of society itself. You know, I do see
Speaker 1: a connection, even though that this is different than what
Speaker 1: we usually think of as hubrist. I see what's going
Speaker 1: on here, like I see the conceptual link, the link
Speaker 1: between pride, arrogance, over confidence on one hand, and sadism
Speaker 1: on the other. I mean, it's sadism almost seems to
Speaker 1: kind of imply and assumed pride and arrogance and over confidence.
Speaker 1: It assumes a world view without stating it that one is,
Speaker 1: you know, better, more deserving than other people, and that
Speaker 1: their faiths are subordinate to your own. Yeah, that it is.
Speaker 1: It is weird to think of this from like a
Speaker 1: modern standard, because you know, I can think of numerous
Speaker 1: examples of individuals, especially like popular celebrity type individuals, where
Speaker 1: you think of them and you think, oh, well, that
Speaker 1: person is clearly guilty of hubrists, and yet by the
Speaker 1: great definition, I don't know if they actually used violence
Speaker 1: against someone. Like one of the examples, a political example
Speaker 1: that was brought up was like if if one politician
Speaker 1: struck another during a speech, like that's but I don't know.
Speaker 1: In ancient Greece, maybe that was that was an easier
Speaker 1: thing to occur in Certainly there are examples of things
Speaker 1: like that occurring in American political history, but uh, I
Speaker 1: mean not recently so, but well no, but I mean
Speaker 1: I think, yes, you're not coming to physical violence, but
Speaker 1: I could say that that's an extension of the impulse
Speaker 1: you see in just sort of like bullying and blatant
Speaker 1: disrespect and all that, where you're you are assuming a
Speaker 1: position of superiority that denies that you would even have
Speaker 1: to to speak on another person's terms. Yeah, so I
Speaker 1: think we see plenty of examples of things that are
Speaker 1: certainly in the spirit of of Greek hubrists, but not
Speaker 1: the definition of actual physical violence. They fall short of that,
Speaker 1: but perhaps not by much. All Right, on that note,
Speaker 1: we're going to take our first break, but when we
Speaker 1: come back, we will will get further into this question
Speaker 1: of over confidence, and we'll start we'll start looking at
Speaker 1: it beyond mythology and history and more at our actual
Speaker 1: daily lives, in our actual inner world. Thank thank Alright,
Speaker 1: we're back. Okay, So we all think we know what
Speaker 1: over confidences we know when we see it. It's a
Speaker 1: common enough character flaw that there are millennia old strains
Speaker 1: of drama and comedy that basically just exists to punish
Speaker 1: it over and over again for our amusement and entertainment. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and of course we always have to remember with tales
Speaker 1: like that, this is not just about the subject of
Speaker 1: the tale, but it's about the consumer of the tale.
Speaker 1: You know, a lot of times we're we're taking in
Speaker 1: these tales of hubrists not only to relish in the
Speaker 1: downfall of these various villains in our lives and in
Speaker 1: our histories and in our world, but also is is
Speaker 1: cautionary tales, you know, like again warnings not to ascend
Speaker 1: too high towards the sun, that sort of thing. Right. Uh.
Speaker 1: So we know overconfidence means, of course having too much confidence,
Speaker 1: but you gotta go one level down from that to
Speaker 1: understand the idea, try to define confidence. And when you
Speaker 1: do that, I think you do run into problems because
Speaker 1: you discover confidence can mean a number of sort of
Speaker 1: different things that are related but separate. So I was
Speaker 1: looking at a few just dictionary definitions to help get these,
Speaker 1: uh in order, and I think the Miriam Webster ones
Speaker 1: capture it pretty well. So one is a feeling or
Speaker 1: consciousness of one's powers or of reliance on one's circumstances,
Speaker 1: So applied to the self, that's basically the statement I
Speaker 1: can do this, and that confidence could be well founded
Speaker 1: or not well founded. Um. The next one would be
Speaker 1: faith or belief that one will act in a right,
Speaker 1: proper or effective way. That one's a little more complicated,
Speaker 1: so that that's not just I can do it, but
Speaker 1: I will do the right thing. Like an example of
Speaker 1: this that I run into every now and then its
Speaker 1: discussions of what will happen if I win the lottery.
Speaker 1: You will not be able to handle all that money
Speaker 1: coming into your life and you're not prepared for what
Speaker 1: it's going to do to your your your social world.
Speaker 1: But then you think, I don't know. I think I
Speaker 1: can handle it, though I think I'm the exception. I
Speaker 1: think I'd be able to put that money to good use,
Speaker 1: and I don't think wealth will change me at all. Right,
Speaker 1: You're like, I'll give it all to charity. Sure, Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then there there, of course, is the third one,
Speaker 1: which is the quality or state of being certain. And
Speaker 1: this is sort of different from the others, but I
Speaker 1: guess it's related. It's like trusting yourself to discern things correctly.
Speaker 1: It's I know what's correct, I know what's right, my
Speaker 1: beliefs are solid. And of course this division can present
Speaker 1: a problem for researchers. You have to study different types
Speaker 1: of overconfidence differently to really understand the spectrum of ways
Speaker 1: that it affects human life. And we'll come back to
Speaker 1: that with especially one of the studies that we look
Speaker 1: at in this pair of episodes, Because if we were
Speaker 1: just to divide confidence up into these three categories, like
Speaker 1: as above, you can easily have people all over the spectrum.
Speaker 1: Someone could be completely overconfident in their ability to do
Speaker 1: something and then also be have a very reasonable expectation of,
Speaker 1: you know, whether or not they do the right thing.
Speaker 1: You know, they might say, who, I don't know if
Speaker 1: I can if I can actually make it across this
Speaker 1: tight rope. But when I when I, when I fall off,
Speaker 1: I'm definitely going to soil my breeches, you know. And
Speaker 1: I think there is ah there's evidence that there's a
Speaker 1: pretty big difference in how confidence in your abilities and
Speaker 1: performance manifests versus how confidence in your the correctness of
Speaker 1: your beliefs manifests um. But if we zoom in on
Speaker 1: specific types of overconfidence, we can find some of the
Speaker 1: best supported effects in all of psychology really. And so
Speaker 1: one very recent paper that we wanted to look at
Speaker 1: was published just this year in Psychological Bulletin by Ethan Zell,
Speaker 1: Jason E. Strickhauser, Constantine set Akidas, and Mark d Alika.
Speaker 1: And it's called the Better than Average Effect in Comparative
Speaker 1: Self Evaluation, A Comprehensive Review and meta analysis. Uh. And
Speaker 1: so this was a huge survey of existing published research
Speaker 1: on something called the better than average effect, which is
Speaker 1: the tendency for people to perceive their abilities, attributes, and
Speaker 1: personality traits as superior compared to their average peer. So
Speaker 1: what would that actually mean. Here's an example. Almost everybody
Speaker 1: thinks that they are a much better than average driver.
Speaker 1: Good drivers correctly think this, bad drivers incorrectly think this.
Speaker 1: Few people actually think I am a bad driver, or
Speaker 1: even I am an average driver. But of course, if
Speaker 1: you just go by the median, which is how this
Speaker 1: question is phrased in the studies that look at it,
Speaker 1: half of drivers are by definition worse than the media
Speaker 1: at driving skill, and yet nine do something percent think
Speaker 1: they're above the media. Oh that's a great stat I
Speaker 1: wish we'd had that to bust out in our October
Speaker 1: episode on driving and the Psychology of driving, because I'm
Speaker 1: I'm reminded of one of the facts that the researchers
Speaker 1: of one paper pointed out, and that was that, you
Speaker 1: know it's driving. Is this cognitively demanding task, and yet
Speaker 1: most of us are able to acquire what you could
Speaker 1: consider mastery of vehicle. Yeah, uh yeah, that's interesting, Like
Speaker 1: it's something that is inherently hard, but we do it
Speaker 1: enough that it becomes easy within the context of human life,
Speaker 1: and then we we think that we are truly better
Speaker 1: than most everyone else at it. It's kind of like
Speaker 1: how playing video games is actually inherently hard as a task,
Speaker 1: but just if you do it enough for recreation, it's
Speaker 1: it's second nature. It's totally easy. Yeah, but it does
Speaker 1: make me think about, like, say, the people who don't
Speaker 1: use turn signals, are they approaching it from the standpoint
Speaker 1: of I am such a great driver, I do not
Speaker 1: need to use turn signals, because they very likely are.
Speaker 1: Because this strikes me as like a true a true
Speaker 1: act of humorists that demands nemesis come forth and and
Speaker 1: smite them in the highway before me, And I guess
Speaker 1: sometimes that's exactly what happens. But the don't be that Nemesis.
Speaker 1: You are not the god known Nemesis. Your road rage
Speaker 1: doesn't solve the problem. And I think that is one
Speaker 1: of the key aspects of a belief, and something like
Speaker 1: Nemesis is ultimately to to keep people from acting out
Speaker 1: as Nemesis themselves, you know, the idea there must be
Speaker 1: some sort of divine retribution for you know, um, you know,
Speaker 1: the individual who who engages in this kind of classical
Speaker 1: hubrists like. Therefore, it's not for me to intervene unless
Speaker 1: I'm gonna you know, actually accused them of such in
Speaker 1: a legal sense right now. Of course, the driving thing
Speaker 1: is just one example, but it's a great example, and
Speaker 1: there are tons of things like this that The better
Speaker 1: than average effect says that, you know, for traits, for
Speaker 1: ability is for attributes that are perceived as positive. Almost
Speaker 1: all of us tend to think we're better than average
Speaker 1: on whatever that metric is. Uh, And and of course
Speaker 1: that can't be the case. You know, half of us
Speaker 1: are going to be below average. A lot of us
Speaker 1: are probably gonna be clustered somewhere around average, given what
Speaker 1: the skill is or what the trade is. And so
Speaker 1: the question this study was looking at was, Okay, how
Speaker 1: strong is this effect? How robust is it? You know?
Speaker 1: So this review includes quote a comprehensive meta analysis of
Speaker 1: better than average studies, including data from a hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty four published articles, two independent samples, in more than
Speaker 1: ninety thousand participants, and what it found is that, unlike
Speaker 1: some classic effects in psychology, which in recent years have
Speaker 1: been undermined by failed replications and fragility revealed by meta analysis,
Speaker 1: the basic version of the better than average effect is
Speaker 1: found to be extremely solid. It is super robust across studies,
Speaker 1: and there's little evidence of publication bias. So the better
Speaker 1: than average effect is deaf only a real fact about
Speaker 1: human brains. But that doesn't mean it always works the
Speaker 1: same for all people. Are all types of evaluations. There
Speaker 1: are tons of interesting little complications revealed here uh and
Speaker 1: discussed in the review, and I think we can come
Speaker 1: back to them in a bit. So a minute ago,
Speaker 1: we were talking about how overconfidence has actually different manifestations
Speaker 1: that are not the same, and you might need to
Speaker 1: study them separately. UH, and I came across a couple
Speaker 1: of interesting papers, both of which had the Berkeley professor
Speaker 1: Don A. Moore as an author. One from two thousand
Speaker 1: and eight with co author Paul J. Heally called The
Speaker 1: Trouble with Overconfidence published in Psychological Review, and one from
Speaker 1: ten with Derek Shots called The Three Faces of Overconfidence
Speaker 1: published in Social and Personality Psychology Compass. Now, both of
Speaker 1: these papers explore the idea that there are actually three
Speaker 1: importantly different kinds of overconfidence which are sometimes lumped together
Speaker 1: in in people talking about the psychological overconfidence bias, and
Speaker 1: they're pointing out that they need to be treated independently,
Speaker 1: studied independently whenever possible. And I think this is a
Speaker 1: really helpful place to further categorize types of overconfidence for
Speaker 1: the rest of our discussion. So are you ready for
Speaker 1: the three types? Let's jump in. Okay, So the three
Speaker 1: types they highlight our overestimation, over placement, and over precision. Now,
Speaker 1: overestimation is thinking that you're better than you are, and specifically,
Speaker 1: this is an overconfidence in your own qualities in an
Speaker 1: objective sense, just out there and you know, floating in
Speaker 1: the void or compared to some objective measure. So if
Speaker 1: you think you have five hundred dollars in the bank,
Speaker 1: but you really have three hundred. That's overestimation. If you
Speaker 1: think you're taller than you are. If you think that
Speaker 1: you never spell words wrong, but in reality you actually
Speaker 1: do spell words wrong all the time. If you think
Speaker 1: you can run a mile in six minutes, but actually
Speaker 1: it will take you fourteen minutes. These are all cases
Speaker 1: of overestimation. These are the sort of things at other
Speaker 1: people or life itself will will call you on. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Typically uh. And then this one's interesting because it it's
Speaker 1: it kind of has runs a spectrum from just pure
Speaker 1: self delusion, like you could if you were just think
Speaker 1: I have a million dollars and you do not have
Speaker 1: a million dollars. That's right. I mean most of the
Speaker 1: time people don't overestimate to that extent, but they might
Speaker 1: overestimate how much money they've got in the bank to
Speaker 1: a small extent, right, or you know, or or I'm
Speaker 1: certainly thinking of smaller examples that that fit into my life,
Speaker 1: like for instance, me overestimating, uh, the amount of time
Speaker 1: I have before I need to pick my son up
Speaker 1: from school, or overestimating the amount of free time I'll
Speaker 1: have to say, you know, watch a terrible B movie
Speaker 1: during a work week. This is very perceptive of you, Robert,
Speaker 1: because actually we'll come back to this later on, I
Speaker 1: think probably in the second episode. That exact thing you mentioned.
Speaker 1: The planning fallacy is one of the most common and
Speaker 1: most robustly demonstrated types of overestimation. People regularly think that
Speaker 1: they will have they will be able to accomplish more
Speaker 1: in less time than they actually can. Yeah. Another example
Speaker 1: would be, you know, when we pack books to bring on, say, vacations,
Speaker 1: oftentimes you can be a little overconfident in either are
Speaker 1: are are reading speed or the amount of time will
Speaker 1: have to to to spend with those books. I know
Speaker 1: that feeling. Yeah, when I'm when I'm traveling, I'm going
Speaker 1: on an airplane or something, I bring like four books
Speaker 1: with me and then I end up reading like three
Speaker 1: pages of one of them. All Right, So that's one
Speaker 1: that we can I think we can all relate to
Speaker 1: for sure. Okay, now the next one that's overestimation. The
Speaker 1: next one is called overplacement, and this is similar but
Speaker 1: a little bit different. Overplacement is the exaggerated belief that
Speaker 1: you are better than others. So it's similar to overestimation,
Speaker 1: accept it involves judging yourself relative to other people instead
Speaker 1: of just judging yourself, kind of floating in the void
Speaker 1: or relative to some objective measure. So this would be like,
Speaker 1: you know, Jeff thinks, okay, if we rated all the
Speaker 1: guys in the office in in order of handsomeness, I
Speaker 1: would be in first place, but in fact, if you
Speaker 1: did that, he would be in sixth place. Uh, he's
Speaker 1: rating himself relative to the other people in the office.
Speaker 1: Or Jeff thinks he is smarter than all of his siblings,
Speaker 1: but actually he is not. Or this is a very
Speaker 1: common one. I think Jeff thinks he works harder than
Speaker 1: other people in the country he lives in, but in
Speaker 1: reality he works fewer than the average number of hours.
Speaker 1: So to use a direct comparison to differentiate between the two,
Speaker 1: overestimation would be thinking you're five nine when you're actually
Speaker 1: five eight. Overplacement would be thinking you're taller than Doug,
Speaker 1: when Doug is actually taller than you. So overplacement really
Speaker 1: entails a broad spectrum of of potentially subjective measures. You
Speaker 1: know who, because who's deciding who is the most handsome
Speaker 1: at the office? Like what is the judging body for this? Subjectivity?
Speaker 1: I think plays a very important role in what types
Speaker 1: of over confidence were most susceptible to right, And we
Speaker 1: can talk more about that as we go on. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I think you're exactly right about that. Though you can
Speaker 1: frame it in terms of objective measures like imagining who
Speaker 1: your coworkers would rank or something like that, like you
Speaker 1: could actually do it and you could guess about how
Speaker 1: it would go. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can. I can
Speaker 1: see that. But it's still it's you know, you're getting
Speaker 1: into questions of like, what are the criteria you know,
Speaker 1: for for judging Jeff's appearance or Jeff's intelligence. That's one too,
Speaker 1: even though we have we have various uh, you know,
Speaker 1: tests and ways of measuring these things, but they're not
Speaker 1: without controversy. They're not without some disagreement. And then we
Speaker 1: get into different types of intelligence, you know. Um, and
Speaker 1: as far as work goes, is it possible that Jeff
Speaker 1: works incredibly hard during an average number of hours? You know?
Speaker 1: Or should we perhaps shame Jeff's workplace for encouraging an
Speaker 1: oppressive work atmosphere where it's just about how many extra
Speaker 1: hours you pour into the day and how attractive you are? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and yeah, and uh, it's so you know, overplacement definitions
Speaker 1: of overconfidence really can get into this ikey territory. I
Speaker 1: feel like classism, racism, sexism, uh meritocracy and and other
Speaker 1: systems that revolve around putting you in your place and
Speaker 1: telling you exactly what you can be and what you
Speaker 1: can accomplish. And it can it can actually itself be
Speaker 1: a form of of sort of the very form of
Speaker 1: hubrists that Nemesis would have punished. Yes, I think exactly right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that even that form of hubrists we were talking about earlier.
Speaker 1: That's like the you know, the cruelty to other people
Speaker 1: to show your superiority to them, that clearly assumes an
Speaker 1: overplacement thing like you, you are just naturally assuming that
Speaker 1: you are better and more worthy, more deserving of high
Speaker 1: status and superiority than other people are. It's it's a
Speaker 1: relative judgment between you and some other you know, the
Speaker 1: victim of whatever cruelty you're showing. But again, the evidence
Speaker 1: is that we do a lot of this kind of thing,
Speaker 1: and lots of it are are obviously not evil and
Speaker 1: cruel like that. A lot of it just might be like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I probably harder than than most of the
Speaker 1: people at my workplace, But actually you don't Yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't know, I just see I feel like there's a
Speaker 1: tremendous potential for cruelty and this, of course, and and
Speaker 1: to the to the extent that like even even more
Speaker 1: moderate versions of it are kind of the you know,
Speaker 1: at the tip of the talent on the overall beast.
Speaker 1: You know. Well, I mean it's definitely the case with
Speaker 1: with the driving example. You know, so the better than
Speaker 1: average effect that I mentioned earlier that there's great, great
Speaker 1: evidence for this would be an example of overplacement, right,
Speaker 1: because you're comparing yourself to other people in general. You're saying, like, no,
Speaker 1: I'm a better than average driver, but nineties something percent
Speaker 1: of drivers think that. Yeah. Okay, well we can we
Speaker 1: can come back to a discussion on this. But let's
Speaker 1: get to the third one. Okay, the third one is
Speaker 1: a little different than the other two. The third one
Speaker 1: is over precision. And this is one of the definitions
Speaker 1: that we talked about, you know, from the More Everyday
Speaker 1: Dictionary understanding. Over precision is being too sure that you
Speaker 1: know the truth. This is what we might also call
Speaker 1: epistemic over confidence. It's being overly certain that your beliefs
Speaker 1: are correct. So, uh, to go back to Jeff, Jeff
Speaker 1: is a hundred percent sure that Vincent Price was in
Speaker 1: Transformers Age of Extinction, Like, definitely, he was the voice
Speaker 1: of one of the robots. He wasn't. But Jeff will
Speaker 1: argue with you about this. He's like, no, I'm sure
Speaker 1: I've looked it up before he was in there. I'm positive.
Speaker 1: Or you ever done a trivia night, You've been on
Speaker 1: the team with somebody like Jeff who's very confident about
Speaker 1: all of his answers. You know, he's positive, write it down.
Speaker 1: He keeps getting stuff wrong. I don't go to a
Speaker 1: lot of trivia nights, but but I can imagine it.
Speaker 1: I used to do trivia night. It's so it's it's
Speaker 1: horrible to have somebody like that on your team who's
Speaker 1: consistently that way. But I also recall the feeling of
Speaker 1: being like that on an individual question and then getting
Speaker 1: it wrong, and like it hurts worse than anything. It's
Speaker 1: the most embarrassing thing ever. Oh yeah, I guess I
Speaker 1: do kind of remember some of that. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I also value Jeff for just pushing the kind reversation
Speaker 1: along and let's go, let's go ahead and select something
Speaker 1: and move on. So we can we can be done
Speaker 1: with this question, right if you don't care about the
Speaker 1: trivia part. Yeah, well, I mean it's like the trivia
Speaker 1: part is just a reason to be there in a bar, right,
Speaker 1: I mean depends on what the prize money is. The
Speaker 1: prize money is generally like what you know. Yeah, Now,
Speaker 1: of course we know that the over precision is hugely
Speaker 1: relevant in in real world context and you know, in
Speaker 1: all kinds of everyday stuff, conversations you have with your friends,
Speaker 1: all the way up to business in politics. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I was this is interesting, especially on the political um
Speaker 1: uh question. I was looking at a two thousand eighteen
Speaker 1: University of Notre Dame study on over confidence, and it
Speaker 1: pointed out that in order to avoid the social punishment
Speaker 1: of overconfidence, you know, essentially being being called on on
Speaker 1: your your false uh you know, understanding of transformer movies
Speaker 1: or you know, the future of the economy, whatever it
Speaker 1: happens to be U. The authors argue that it helps
Speaker 1: to engage in plausible deniability. So examples include claims that
Speaker 1: cannot be proven wrong in the moment, though they may
Speaker 1: be proven wrong later, or more importantly, using terminology that
Speaker 1: is not subject to close scrutiny. So saying a particular
Speaker 1: war will be a cake walks one example they bring
Speaker 1: up because ultimately, like what's a cake walk? You know
Speaker 1: you can you could make the argument that, Okay, one
Speaker 1: person died, that's not a cake walk. One life is important,
Speaker 1: or if you could bump that, you could you know,
Speaker 1: it's totally in the either the holder. Another example would
Speaker 1: be saying that something will be made great. What does
Speaker 1: it mean to make it great? Like what is what
Speaker 1: is great? Putt put a number value on great? But
Speaker 1: you don't want to put a number value on it
Speaker 1: because then you could be shown to be wrong. So like,
Speaker 1: the more vague you are with your predictions, the harder
Speaker 1: it is for somebody to later come along and show
Speaker 1: that you were wrong. Right. And this is why the
Speaker 1: I think the the trivia example is a is a
Speaker 1: perfect example to to bring out because it is a
Speaker 1: semi artificial situation in which you're really putting your knowledge
Speaker 1: on the line and just you know, and and and
Speaker 1: stating yes, this is what I believe, this is the fact,
Speaker 1: and then you're you're gonna be immediately uh called on
Speaker 1: it if you're wrong. Well, I think you know one
Speaker 1: great example we're talking about politics. You talked about like
Speaker 1: making an economy better in the future, Like you know,
Speaker 1: politicians would always claim to be able to do, and
Speaker 1: they've got different ways that they claim that will happen.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think what people just have to admit
Speaker 1: in reality. So there's a huge amount of uncertainty in
Speaker 1: in economics, in political economics, like you can't actually predict
Speaker 1: what's going to happen in the future economy. You can
Speaker 1: make some very broad, vague generalizations, but you know, you're
Speaker 1: not gonna know when the recession is going to happen.
Speaker 1: You're not gonna know exactly what effect the new tax
Speaker 1: or budget bill is going to have. You can generalize,
Speaker 1: but you know it's hard to know for sure. There's
Speaker 1: tons of uncertainty, right, But that's all. But at the
Speaker 1: same time, it's a horrible campaign slogan, right, Yeah, we'll
Speaker 1: do our best, but you know you can't be Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so people are going to tenue to gravitate towards these statements,
Speaker 1: especially these vague statements that protect the liar in question. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I mentioned these two papers that both had Donna
Speaker 1: Moore is one of the authors, and they both of
Speaker 1: them looked at what percentage of the existing papers in
Speaker 1: the scientific literature on over confidence. We're looking at each
Speaker 1: type of over confidence. And so the two thousand and
Speaker 1: eight study found that forty six percent of papers were
Speaker 1: looking at overestimation, uh, thirty two percent were overplacement, and
Speaker 1: twenty two percent were over precision. And then they looked
Speaker 1: at it again on papers that had come out since
Speaker 1: that one in the paper, and they found that sixty
Speaker 1: percent were overestimation overplacement and nineteen percent on over precision.
Speaker 1: One of the main ones we're gonna keep looking at
Speaker 1: in this episode series is about overplacement. It's about the
Speaker 1: better and better than average effect. But I'm struck by
Speaker 1: the fact that in both of these analyzes, the least
Speaker 1: attention is going to over precision, which seems like perhaps
Speaker 1: the most important of these effects to study. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: maybe it's one where we you know, you know certainly
Speaker 1: that you know the study I mentioned is not is
Speaker 1: not really presenting something that is not already intrinsically understood,
Speaker 1: you know, lying and inflating estimation, basically playing the social game.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's what humans do. So maybe we're just
Speaker 1: we have a built in a tendency to safeguard ourselves again,
Speaker 1: except in semi artificial situations like tests and trivia nights.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's a big problem. This is, of course
Speaker 1: a problem in all kinds of arenas of psychology research,
Speaker 1: but it's definitely a big problem in studying over confidence because,
Speaker 1: as several of the authors have been reading have pointed out,
Speaker 1: it can be really hard to recreate the types of
Speaker 1: overconfidence projection scenarios that occur in the real world in
Speaker 1: the lab. All right, on that note, we're gonna take
Speaker 1: one more break, but we'll be right back. Alright, we're back, Okay.
Speaker 1: So I wanted to go back to that paper that
Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier in the episode, the one that just
Speaker 1: came out this year in Psychological Bulletin, the the comprehensive
Speaker 1: review and meta analysis of the existing research on the
Speaker 1: better than average effect, the thing where people just tend
Speaker 1: to think that, you know, they evaluate themselves as better
Speaker 1: than average on all different kinds of qualities. So the
Speaker 1: researchers themselves in this paper from and again that was
Speaker 1: zel at all. Uh. They define it thus, Lee, They say,
Speaker 1: b t a E is the proclivity to rate one's
Speaker 1: current abilities attributes or personality traits more favorably than those
Speaker 1: of the average peer. Now, there's a ton of stuff
Speaker 1: in this paper, but I wanted to talk just briefly
Speaker 1: about a few of its major findings. Of Course, as
Speaker 1: we mentioned earlier, the paper found robust, highly replicable evidence
Speaker 1: for the better than average effects. They did find different
Speaker 1: effect sizes given different scenarios, but generally the effect is there.
Speaker 1: It is really how our brains tend to work most
Speaker 1: of the time. So one thing that I thought was
Speaker 1: very interesting, and I think this ties into some of
Speaker 1: the vagueness that you were just talking about, Robert, abilities
Speaker 1: versus traits. The researchers here found that the better than
Speaker 1: average effect is significantly stronger for personality traits than it
Speaker 1: is for abilities. So, for example, people on average are
Speaker 1: more likely to overplace themselves for semi fixed personal traits
Speaker 1: like intelligence, honesty, or attractiveness, or sense of humor than
Speaker 1: they are to overplace themselves on specific abilities like how
Speaker 1: well will I do on this math test? You know,
Speaker 1: though they show the better than average effect for both.
Speaker 1: The effect is stronger for traits than it is for abilities.
Speaker 1: Does that make sense? Yes? Yeah, and again yeah again.
Speaker 1: It comes back to something that is easily proven, easily
Speaker 1: put into the put to the test, like say your
Speaker 1: ability shooting what free throws in basketball? Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: versus something that is far more subjective. Yeah, And the
Speaker 1: authors they agree they think this is quote likely because
Speaker 1: personality traits are more abstract and less subject to external
Speaker 1: verification than abilities. And I think that's not just like
Speaker 1: in the moment you're making the prediction about yourself, you know,
Speaker 1: not just because you fear embarrassment. I think your estimation
Speaker 1: of your own abilities is probably generally more truly accurate
Speaker 1: because you have more chances in your life to have
Speaker 1: your your self impressions adjusted by meeting obstacles and you know,
Speaker 1: being regulated by them. You actually very rarely run into
Speaker 1: scenarios in your life where somebody can say you're not
Speaker 1: as smart as you think you are, or if they
Speaker 1: can say that you know you just like it's easy
Speaker 1: to dismiss. Yeah, I guess I get the sense that
Speaker 1: you know, certainly as you as you age, there's more
Speaker 1: of an erosion of those those tendencies as opposed to
Speaker 1: just you know, you know, you know, a sharp impact
Speaker 1: on them. Well, that's another funny thing there is a
Speaker 1: role of age in this. The meta analysis revealed that
Speaker 1: the better than average fact was negatively correlated across lifespan.
Speaker 1: So on average, the younger you are, the more likely
Speaker 1: you are to overplace yourself relative to pears. Younger people
Speaker 1: show more better than average effect than older people. Just
Speaker 1: like Aristotle told us again, he pointed out that the
Speaker 1: young and the rich are the ones most likely to
Speaker 1: suffer from hubris. That's funny. I wonder what exactly explains that.
Speaker 1: Could it be that throughout life you're literally just getting
Speaker 1: more information, like you're learning more about your own limitations,
Speaker 1: and that tempers your over overplacement about your own abilities.
Speaker 1: Could be I mean, I mean again, we're kind of
Speaker 1: getting into two tropes here that to varying degrees, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, can be applied to to actual real life individuals.
Speaker 1: But there is that idea of the of of the
Speaker 1: the the prideful, rich individual as being kind of like
Speaker 1: a man baby that that has never never had to
Speaker 1: really be proven wrong, that has just been surrounded by
Speaker 1: yes men for example, that sort of thing. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: I I also do want to it. I mean, we
Speaker 1: don't really know. It's possible that it doesn't have anything
Speaker 1: to do with getting extra information. It could just be
Speaker 1: psychological facts about the young versus the old. Well, I
Speaker 1: mean it could. It could tie into just the basic
Speaker 1: the difference different psychology of of a young person who
Speaker 1: is who is like an arrow leaving the bow, you know,
Speaker 1: Like the whole idea is that, Yeah, when you're young,
Speaker 1: you're bold, you want to break away from your family
Speaker 1: because that's ultimately how you're going. You're you're just obeying
Speaker 1: the genetic mission of the organism. That's true. It could
Speaker 1: It could be that there are stronger pressures in favor
Speaker 1: of inflated confidence in a younger brain. Here is another
Speaker 1: interesting one, negative better than average effect versus positive better
Speaker 1: than average effect the author's right quote. When examining thirty
Speaker 1: six matched comparisons in which other variables were held constant,
Speaker 1: the better than average effect was larger for positive dimensions
Speaker 1: the negative dimensions, which suggests that the motive to self
Speaker 1: enhance or exaggerate one's positive qualities may be more pronounced
Speaker 1: than a motive to self protect or minimize one's negative qualities. Okay,
Speaker 1: so if I give you a chance to rate yourself
Speaker 1: compared to others, I say, you know, how would you
Speaker 1: rate yourself in terms of your honesty? Versus I say,
Speaker 1: how would you rate yourself in terms of deceptiveness? That's
Speaker 1: sort of asking the same question. It seems the better
Speaker 1: than average effect manifests in both like that you're more
Speaker 1: likely to overestimate your honesty underestimate your deceptive nous. But
Speaker 1: the effect is stronger for exaggerating the good trait than
Speaker 1: it is for minimizing the negative trait. I wonder why
Speaker 1: that is. Yeah, I mean, I guess it. You know,
Speaker 1: in a broad sense, it just kind of comes back
Speaker 1: to playing the social game, right of just of presenting
Speaker 1: yourself to your fellow humans. I wonder if it plays
Speaker 1: into our our sense of like having a rich personality,
Speaker 1: that we would imagine ourselves as having strong positive qualities
Speaker 1: and allowing some negative qualities as opposed to you know,
Speaker 1: just uh, not really getting to adventurous with wrong positive
Speaker 1: qualities but denying negative qualities. Yeah, perhaps so. The study
Speaker 1: also they looked at gender. They found no gender association.
Speaker 1: Men and women were equally likely to engage in the
Speaker 1: better than average effect. They looked at culture, and through
Speaker 1: some types of analysis, they didn't find much difference between cultures.
Speaker 1: But they said, to quote, an analysis of eleven matched
Speaker 1: comparisons yielded a significantly larger b T a E in
Speaker 1: the case of European Americans than East Asians. It's possible
Speaker 1: that the better than average effect was larger among European
Speaker 1: Americans because the dimensions were of greater cultural importance to them.
Speaker 1: So like the specific traits being measured in that test
Speaker 1: might have been phrases or traits that were considered more
Speaker 1: important in European American culture as possible um But then
Speaker 1: they also say, indeed, the three studies that considered dimension
Speaker 1: importance found that European Americans exhibited a larger better than
Speaker 1: average effect on individualistic traits, but there was no difference
Speaker 1: between cultural groups on collectivists traits. Moreover, although the better
Speaker 1: than average effect varied by culture, it was generally robust
Speaker 1: in both European Americans and East Asians, which supports the
Speaker 1: position that self enhancement is universal. You know, did these
Speaker 1: foundings do remind me of our previous discussions on how
Speaker 1: the how, how how the East and West differ to
Speaker 1: certain degrees in how we view you know, the nature
Speaker 1: of character, whether it is something that emerges internally or
Speaker 1: it is subject to the in the forces of environment
Speaker 1: and culture. Yes, uh yeah, the the the greater emphasis
Speaker 1: on context, and this also seems to tie into Actually,
Speaker 1: I think this was the context in which that discussion happened,
Speaker 1: was when we were talking about fundamental attribution error. Uh
Speaker 1: and the fact that it seemed like by some measures,
Speaker 1: East Asian cultures were less prone to the fundamental attribution
Speaker 1: error than like European Americans were, right, yeah, though they
Speaker 1: were still prone to it. It just basically the numbers
Speaker 1: were a little different between East and West, and that
Speaker 1: seems to be the case here too, Like both are
Speaker 1: prone to the better than average effect, but by some
Speaker 1: measures it's a little stronger among European Americans, especially on
Speaker 1: individualistic traits. Here's one more that I thought was interesting.
Speaker 1: They found that there was a medium sized positive association
Speaker 1: between the better than average effect and both self esteem
Speaker 1: and life satisfaction quote. As anticipated, Therefore, the tendency to
Speaker 1: perceive oneself as above average was associated with greater self
Speaker 1: esteem and happiness. However, the moderate size of these associations
Speaker 1: indicates that the better than average effect is not redundant
Speaker 1: with self esteem and happiness, so they're saying, it's it's
Speaker 1: clearly not the case that just like self esteem and
Speaker 1: happiness are the better than average effects, that it's not
Speaker 1: just a one for one thing, but there is a correlation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I imagine that that some listeners might might have already
Speaker 1: been been thinking on this a little bit, because we
Speaker 1: spent a fair amount of of time here in this
Speaker 1: episode sort of driving home the fact that you're probably
Speaker 1: not as good as you think you are. Well, you
Speaker 1: might be about some things, about some things, but uh,
Speaker 1: you know, the the ultimate message is kind of depressing.
Speaker 1: You know. It's kind of like, oh, well, I I
Speaker 1: thought I was an honest person, but I don't know.
Speaker 1: Joe said, I'm not, so I didn't say, I guess
Speaker 1: I should feel bad about myself. Come on, But that
Speaker 1: is not the message of this episode. No. I think
Speaker 1: it's still like it's to to be wary about positive
Speaker 1: self impressions. It's not that you know you are actually
Speaker 1: really bad. It's that our brains on average, have a
Speaker 1: tendency to inflate positive self impressions, especially when it comes
Speaker 1: to things like personality traits. It's worth being aware of
Speaker 1: that fact about ourselves and as it applies to others. Obviously,
Speaker 1: it's not something that applies just to you. This is
Speaker 1: something that appears to apply to human beings, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I guess one way to look at it would be, say,
Speaker 1: on the subject of generosity, like if it's not to say, Okay,
Speaker 1: Joe said, I'm not as generous as I as I
Speaker 1: think I am, and I should feel depressed over this,
Speaker 1: But more we should realize that, Okay, if we value
Speaker 1: our generosity, d that's that's great. We may very well
Speaker 1: be overestimating our generosity and therefore that's just a reason
Speaker 1: to lean into the thing you value. Yeah. Another way
Speaker 1: to do it is to is to make yourself perception
Speaker 1: of your positive traits uh dependent on real world performance. Uh. So,
Speaker 1: for example, if you want to think I'm a generous person,
Speaker 1: don't just trust your gut about these free floating positive qualities.
Speaker 1: Prove it to yourself, right, you have to do things
Speaker 1: that make it true. Yeah, what would a generous person
Speaker 1: do in this scenario? And then do it? Yeah? All right, Well,
Speaker 1: we're gonna go ahead and cut this episode off here,
Speaker 1: but we will be back in the next episode to
Speaker 1: continue discussions of over confidence. Uh. You know what, it
Speaker 1: means from psychological standpoint, will also get into a little
Speaker 1: bit into the business scenario here, which is which I
Speaker 1: have to say, is a lot more interesting than it sounds. Well,
Speaker 1: you're you saying there's over confidence in business. No even
Speaker 1: not believe it or not there is so well, we'll
Speaker 1: discuss that as well in the next episode. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: if you want to check out other episodes of Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind, such as you know some of
Speaker 1: these episodes we've been referring back to here, or if
Speaker 1: you want to check out Invention, our other show, you
Speaker 1: can find them both wherever you get your podcasts. If
Speaker 1: you've got a Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com,
Speaker 1: that will shoot you over to the I heart listing
Speaker 1: for this show, but you can find us anywhere and
Speaker 1: wherever that happens to be. Just make sure you rate, review,
Speaker 1: and subscribe because those actions really help us out in
Speaker 1: the long run. Huge thanks as always to our excellent
Speaker 1: audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to
Speaker 1: get in touch with us with feedback on this episode
Speaker 1: or any other, to suggest a topic for the future,
Speaker 1: or just to say hi, you can email us at
Speaker 1: contact at stuff to blow your Mind dot com. Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind is a production of I Heart
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