Tag Archives: Status

Motivated Legal Bias

By Robin Hanson · March 7, 2010 5:00 pm · Comments (21)

The probability of being sentenced to death is much greater if a defendant kills a white or Hispanic victim who is married with a clean criminal record and a college degree, as opposed to a black or Asian victim who is single with a prior criminal record and no college degree. …

“Irrelevant social facts also shape the ultimate state sanction” Phillips says. “In the capital of capital punishment, death is more apt to be sought and imposed on behalf of high status victims. Some victims matter more than others.”

Phillips research is based on 504 death penalty cases that occurred in Harris County, Texas between 1992 and 1999.  Drawing on the same data, Phillips’s previous research demonstrated that black defendants were more likely to be sentenced to death than white defendants in Houston. The racial disparities revealed in the prior paper become even more acute after accounting for victim social status – black defendants were more apt to be sentenced to death despite being less apt to kill high status victims.

More here (HT naz). I expect such patterns to be found in most legal jurisdictions, not just Harris County Texas.  You will find it hard to find any lawyer, judge, or law professor who will go on the record saying these are officially accepted as legitimate considerations in legal sentencing.  Most will say the law “tries” to ignore such considerations.  And yet such patterns have long existed, have long been widely known to exist.

These are motivated biases, not just random accidents of a system trying to be fair but failing to because of limited human mental capacity.  These errors are far more likely to persist than the opposite error.  If the opposite errors were suddenly to become common, enormous concern would be expressed, great resources would be spent, and we’d be willing to consider large institutional changes to eliminate them.

The place such errors enter is of course via “judgment.”  We recoil in horror at the thought of a simple legal system where judges or juries could make any decision they wanted in each case they considered.  But we also recoil at the thought of a legal system with explicit rules which had to be followed exactly in each case.  We instead prefer a legal system with lots of specific rules, where in the end “reasonable” people are allowed to exercise “judgment” about how to “interpret” the rules.   It sure looks like what we want is the appearance of constraining ourselves to follow rules, combined with the practice of arbitrary choice.

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Two Kinds Of Status

By Robin Hanson · February 17, 2010 10:00 am · Comments (17)

The conceited, arrogant feeling of pride has been called the deadliest of the seven deadly sins. Yet pride can also be noble. We all know the contented sense of achievement and self-worth that comes with having done well at something, whether it be achieving a promotion, building something, winning a race or figuring out a cryptic crossword clue. That’s why Jessica Tracy, … one of the few psychologists focused on pride, makes the distinction between what she calls “hubristic pride” and “authentic pride”.

Pride may manifest itself in two different ways, but we cannot tell these apart by their outward appearance, she says.  Both types cause people to tilt their heads back, extend their arms from their body and try to look as large as possible. …

When people see pride expressed they associate it with high status. So pride motivates us to do well so that we gain respect. …  Status can take two forms. … The first is based on dominance and commonly seen in non-human primates, whereby bigger and stronger individuals are revered because they could overwhelm or kill others. The human equivalents include the playground bully and officious boss.  The second kind of status is prestige. In this case, respect and power is gained through knowledge or skill.

More here. I was skeptical at first, but now am convinced: humans see two kinds of status, and approve of prestige-status much more than domination-status.  I’ll have much more to say about this in the coming days, but it is far from clear to me that prestige-status is as much better than domination-status as people seem to think.  Efforts to achieve prestige-status also have serious negative side-effects.

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Distinguishing Defense

By Robin Hanson · February 9, 2010 8:35 am · Comments (17)

Many folks are not that comfortable with the idea of working in or for the military.  Yes, at some level we all support armies via paying taxes, selling them food, teaching their kids, etc., but the more direct their support the more uncomfortable many folks get.  For example, actually stabbing enemy soldiers on the front line is more direct than most of us prefer.  No doubt this discomfort at directness deprives armies of the support of many talented folks.

Some military folks I know emphasize that their efforts are primarily defensive; they help resist enemy attack and protect civilians from harm.  They are clearly asking not to be treated as if they were just an average part of the military machine.  But I wonder: why don’t we make it easier for such people to show that their efforts are mainly defensive.  Why don’t more parts of the military, and more military contractors, officially distinguish themselves as more emphasizing defense over offense?  Why can’t I work for a particular “defense” contractor with a clear reputation for only working on the defensive side of war?

Now it is true that in this case orgs that did not explicitly identify as defensive would look more offensive, making some folks less willing to associate with them.  But many a brash young man is eager to show he is a front-line fighter, so there might be overall sorting gains from making this distinction.  Is it that those who run our military hate the idea of officially acknowledging and accomodating citizens who don’t offer full unconditional (offense or defense as required) support of our military?

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No English Gene Classes

By Robin Hanson · February 5, 2010 8:45 am · Comments (9)

Greg Clark gave a talk here Thursday, and presented data showing that in the long run, England has no social classes!  When English surnames were first created, they marked the status of folks.  The village smith, for example, was called “Smith.”  But by now, those rich and poor surnames are totally mixed – a surname tells you little about someone’s status.  For example, this table describes a sample of once-rich names with especially low rates of mistaken names changes:

surnamehistory2

Clark claims this does not contradict the main thesis of his recent book:

A Farewell to Alms argued that for 800 years at least in pre-industrial England the rich were taking over the society demographically, and replacing the poor.  The evidence above of the dominance of regression to the mean may seem to contradict that argument.  But there is no conflict.  The rich can still have a reproductive advantage within each generation.  It is just that the rich change from generation to generation under the forces of regression to the mean.  But if the argument of A Farewell to Alms is correct then the rich in 1600, or in any generation, should have many more descendants by 1851 than the poor, even though by 1851 they are no longer distinguishable by occupation, income, or wealth. While there was complete regression to the mean in terms of economic status, we do observe that the rich of 1600 left many more descendants than the poor.  … Economic success by a man in 1600 substantially increased his share of their genes in the English gene pool by 1851, as was predicted in A Farewell to Alms.

Substantially increased?  Going from 0.45% to 0.59% of the population is a gain of 31%, but a 31% gain by the rich in six centuries is hardly enough to “take over” England genetically in anything less than tens of thousands of years!  Even if we assume twice this gain from illegitimate kids, clearly Clark’s new work has shown his main book thesis false.

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States Sting Status

By Robin Hanson · January 13, 2010 9:45 am · Comments (35)
We usually take control as a strong marker of status; those who give orders have higher status than those who take orders.  So, for example, bosses are reluctant to oversee better paid subordinates, and teens chafe under the control of their parents and teachers, even when their lives are otherwise comfortable.
People care about the form of government they live under not only because different forms of government have different chances of leading to peace, prosperity, etc.  People also care about how governments more directly influences their status.  For example, in addition to or setting aside our beliefs about which forms of government lead to which other outcomes, I suspect most of us prefer:
democracy to autarchy, as it gives us more illusion of control.
proportional representation, as gives more control over the person we pick
equal votes per person, as otherwise others have more votes than you
the state to be controlled by a group we identify with, so we seem in control
stigma be attached to welfare given to groups we don’t identify with
more regulation of competing high status, to bring them down to us
more support of affiliated high status, to bring us up with as they rise
laws not treat us like children or fools, as that degrades us
I suspect such status issues drive our actual choice of government forms more often than we like to admit.
Thinking along these lines, I was wondering about the status effects of something like futarchy — what if every time the government considered a policy, you had the option to bet for or against that policy, and such bets influenced policy?
Yes, you might still have to suffer the status-reducing indignity of being ruled by foolish policies chosen by clueless folks who in a just world would be considered your inferiors.  But you would always know that you had the option to have a large influence, via bets, on those policies, an influence far out of proportion to your fraction of the population.  You would also know that you could, via bets, arrange to be paid lots of money when those policies went badly, just as you had predicted.  Would this raise your status, relative to only influencing policy via your tiny fractional vote, and then just having to live with the consequences?
Setting aside whether this betting system would actually choose good policies producing peace, prosperity, etc., the question I’m asking in this post is if this betting system might substantially shrink the status sting of the state.  Yes this would not fully assuage a libertarian’s outrage at being subject to policies he did not (recently) choose, but would it be a substantial step in that direction?

We usually see control as a marker of status; those who give orders have higher status than those who take orders.  So, for example, bosses are reluctant to oversee better-paid subordinates, and teens chafe under the control of parents and teachers, even when their lives are otherwise comfortable.  People also hate or love their governments in part because how it makes them feel controlled by others, or in control of others.

More generally, people care about the governments they live under not only because different types of government have different chances of leading to peace, prosperity, etc. People also care about how governments more directly influence their status. For example, in addition to wanting governments that induce other outcomes like peace or prosperity, I suspect most of us prefer:

  1. governments with forms like those of recent high status regimes,
  2. to be part of large rich powerful empires, since those are high status,
  3. democracy over autarchy, as it gives us more illusion of control,
  4. proportional representation, as we then more control who represents us,
  5. equal votes per person, as otherwise others have more votes than us,
  6. states controlled by groups we identify with, so we seem in control,
  7. stigma attached to assistance given groups we don’t identify with,
  8. more regulation of competing high status folks, to bring them down to us,
  9. more support of affiliated high status folks, to lift us as they rise, and
  10. laws that treat them but not us like children, as that degrades folks.

Such status issues may drive our choice of government forms more often than we like to admit.  So when trying to design good government, we need to take such status affects into account, so that our designs can be attractive and stable.  Thinking along these lines, I was wondering about the status effects of something like futarchy — what if every time the government considered a policy, you had the option to bet for or against that policy, and such bets influenced policy?

Yes, you might still have to suffer the status-reducing indignity of being ruled by foolish policies chosen by dimwits who in a just world would be considered your inferiors. But you would always know that, via bets, you had the option of a large influence on those policies, far out of proportion to your fraction of the population.  You would also know that you could, via bets, arrange to be paid lots when those policies went badly, just as you had predicted.  Would this raise your status, relative to only influencing policy via your tiny fractional vote, and then just having to live with the consequences?

Setting aside whether this betting system would actually choose good policies producing peace, prosperity, etc., the question I’m asking in this post is if this betting system might substantially shrink the status sting of the state.  Yes this would not fully assuage a libertarian’s outrage at being subject to policies he did not (recently) choose, but would it be a substantial step in that direction?

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Status Audit

By Robin Hanson · January 12, 2010 8:00 am · Comments (39)

Breathing is very important to us.  Even so, it is hard to say that we do much of what we do just to breathe.  Instead, we adjust what we do to make sure we can breathe.  We do this mostly unconsciously, but we do it.

Similarly, status is very important to us.  But it looks bad to do things to directly for status; that seems too desperate.  So usually we have other conscious motivations, and unconsciously adjust our behavior to manage status. This lets us avoid showing or seeing how much status matters to us.

With this in mind, I thought I’d try a quick status audit of my blogging behavior, using this fascinating list of status moves.  I’ve listed the 41 of them that plausibly apply below.  Considering my usual blogging style, I’ve tried to code as red moves where what I tend to do or not do typically raises my status or lower others’, and as blue moves that typically lower my status or raise others’.  Black moves were harder to code.

A. High-status behaviors

  1. Having no visible reaction to what the other person said.
  2. Speaking in complete sentences.
  3. Talking matter-of-factly about things that the other person finds displeasing or offensive.
  4. Speaking authoritatively, with certainty.
  5. Giving or withholding permission.
  6. Evaluating other people’s work.
  7. Speaking cryptically.
  8. Being surrounded by an entourage. Continue Reading "Status Audit" »
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Docs vs MBAs

By Robin Hanson · December 29, 2009 12:00 pm · Comments (22)

In a Florida operating room … there’s an anesthesiologist alternating with a nurse anesthetist, an X-ray technician and a circulating nurse; … there’s the surgeon, a middle-aged orthopedist who has never performed this type of operation before.  And, at the foot of the operating table, there’s Chuck Bates, a guy who studied biology in college. … Come up one centimeter and make your incision there, Bates tells the surgeon. …

The job wholesaling hot dogs enabled Bates to get an MBA … which led to employment with Kyphon, a manufacturer of medical devices.  … Bates was the salesman in the operating room. … Sales representatives … in operating rooms … serve as simple reminders that medicine is a business, with all the potential that entails to promote efficiency, boost sales and extract profit.  But should they be there at all?  In an age of rapidly proliferating technologies, the salesmen may know more about their products than the doctors who use them do. … They speed procedures along, making time for more. …

Many medical devices could not be used — or used safely — without sales reps. … Richmond gynecologist Catherine A. Matthews said that’s a frightening argument.  “They’re not in any way motivated to recommend what might be the best thing for the patient,” Matthews said. “They’re there to sell their product.”  Doctors shouldn’t have to depend on reps for expertise, she added. … The presence of the salesman in the operating room has long raised concerns that it can put the interests of manufacturers before those of patients.

More here.  Can’t you feel the shame?  You pick a prestigious doctor to solve your problem, and instead he’s taking orders from some lowly MBA!  Horrors.  Such low status folks might, gasp, recommend things to make money, not like surgeons, who are far too high status and “professional” to care about such lowly things as money.  Riiiight.

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The Empire Bias

By Robin Hanson · December 28, 2009 11:00 am · Comments (19)

Firms tend to be managed with an “empire” bias, i.e., toward being too big.  The largest firms are less profitable, they too often reinvest rather than pay dividends, and firm mergers and acquisitions tend to lose money.  Also, as I suggested yesterday, the fact that organizations can be too big at all is probably due to a bias to over-manage top subordinates, to justify and affirm supervisor status.

The fact that we can so easily see this bias shows that investors have limited control over managers.  If it were easier to buy firms out and change their management, presumably we’d see more large firms forced to break up, and more top managers forced to accept autonomous subordinates.  (Which would be a good thing.)  Instead, overly large firms are now disciplined mainly by having to shrink when they run out of money.

Non-business organizations also suffer this empire bias; their managers also overly focus on increasing size and overly-managing subordinates to justify and assert their status.  This empire bias seems worse for states than firms because:

  1. Financial losses quickly threaten firms, but states can be less efficient before war or revolt threatens them.
  2. Preventing war or revolt depends less on supplying value and more on ensuring loyalty, which empire aids.
  3. States accountable to voters or elites tilt toward their biases, and most people under-appreciate org scale disecon.
  4. Non-pivotal voters or elites gain status by advocating more empire, even when empire policies hurt them on net.

A world government should be even more biased to overly-manage overly-large overly-intrusive agencies.  After all, its existence is much less threatened by war or comparison with productive outsiders.  The Soviet Union collapsed because its citizens could eventually see clearly the West’s superior productivity; a world-wide Soviet Union would avoid such embarrassment.

Of course future world governments might add great value dealing with global coordination problems.  Whether a world government will be worth its empire costs depends on how serious and frequent are such problems, and on how much better we learn to structure large organizations to avoid such costs.

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Doubling Down On US Status

By Robin Hanson · December 16, 2009 2:35 pm · Comments (44)

We humans are designed to not to notice how much we want and work to achieve status; we often misunderstand our behavior by ignoring underlying status drives.  Similarly, discussions of national politics too often ignore status explanations for national policies.

I recently heard an Iranian democracy activist explain that more democracy would be good for Iran because democracy is more respected by the world.  I’ve heard Russia indulges inefficient industries over exploiting its vast natural resources because resource selling nations are low status.  And I recall a famous explanation for missteps by declining empires like Spain and England is their refusing to acknowledge falling relative capabilities.

Such status stories help explain recent events here in the US:

1. We think we have the world’s largest homes and biggest homeowner fraction.  So we subsidized more folks to have more bigger homes.  Even though that went terribly wrong, we refuse to admit we went too far and are still trying hard to subsidize home ownership.

2. We think we have the world center of finance and banking.  When that badly stumbled and threatened to greatly shrink, we instead saved it at enormous expense.  When those banks and their execs then quickly bounced back, we needed to show them who’s boss.  To show we run them, they don’t run us, we are passing finance reform to “protect consumers,” though unprotected consumers had little to do with the crash.

3. We think we gave cheap cars to the world, and so can’t stand to see US auto companies collapse and be replaced by foreign ones.  So we bought and are subsidizing our still-bleeding car companies.

4. We are proud of being the only folks to send men to the Moon, and so still spend billions on a manned space program even though we have little interest in whatever it is they are doing.

5. We think we saved the world from both Nazism and Communism, and are now saving it from radical Islamists.  Even though our Iraq venture has not gone well, we are staying there, and greatly increasing our presence in Afghanistan.  We are expanding a military larger than the rest of the world’s military combined.  We are proud of our elderly, especially veterans, for helping us to save the world, and borrow to ensure they retire in comfort.

6. Many in the US are ashamed that Europe seems greener than us, and want to fix that by taxing carbon more to get closer to European green levels.  But many of us are proud of having bigger homes, cars, TVs, etc, and so aren’t actually willing to go that green.  Unstoppable force meets immovable object, here we come.

7.  We think we brought modern med to the world and lead the world in med innovation and med tech.  So we spend far more on med than anywhere else, and let others free ride on our innovation.  But many of us are ashamed that we seem less caring of our own than Europeans, who make sure everyone gets med.  So we are trying to add more regulation to ensure more med use here.  While in most nations regulation reduces medical spending, we won’t cut back on med use since we are so proud of being med leaders.

8. We are proud of being world leaders in music and movies.  Since those industries are threatened by tech induced loss of copyright, we are willing to give up lots behind the scenes to get others to help save copyright.  My guess: we will give away meaningful protections for free speech; we are proud of having the most free speech, and so don’t really mind others having less, or even us having less, as long as we still have the most.

9. We are proud that we constrain our police via civil rights, we don’t use torture as punishment, we aren’t so nosy as to care if neighbors are criminals, and yet we are “tough” on drug crimes.  We manage this via unparalleled rates of (and cost of) prison.

The pattern: each time we fail in something where we see (or want to see) ourselves as a world leader, we double down, borrowing money to gamble that we can win it all back and stay ahead in everything.  But that extra spending stresses the rest of our systems, making them more likely to fail.  It is hard to see how this ends well; pride, indeed, goeth before a fall.

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Status Honesty

By Robin Hanson · December 15, 2009 9:35 am · Comments (58)

Scott Young ponders how honest to be about status:

People tend to ignore the status benefits of wealth. Most obviously because seeking status is a low-status behavior. Anyone seen grubbing for fame or new toys to impress their friends becomes less impressive.  As a result, I believe many people delude themselves that they want material possessions for intrinsic reasons. This is an unconscious effort to seek material wealth for purely status-related motives, and at the same time, not appear interested in grubbing for status. …

Some people would argue that the solution is to wipe yourself free of the need to obtain status. …  Another solution is to accept that people want status, and to pursue it zealously. … Of course, you could lie about these motives when asked, but still pursue them secretly. … One other solution seems to be the one most people pursue: search for status doggedly, but carefully delude yourself that every action you take for status, is actually pursued for other, nobler reasons. … None of these choices seem very appealing …

Perhaps the resolution to the conflict lies in accepting our need for status like all our other needs, hunger, sex or affection. … We should balance our strategy of life so that our pursuit of status mostly coincides with our other, nobler needs.  An artist might accept that recognition drives him. But he can also choose strategies that balance this drive with his need for creative expression, mastery or public impact.

No, no.  Scott, you are thinking you are built with separate desires for status and creative expression (etc.), which you must consciously trade against one another.  But we rarely need to consciously try to achieve status; usually the details of our desire for creative expression (etc.) are already designed to achieve status. Continue Reading "Status Honesty" »

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