I usually read the entire Washington Post, but apparently I didn’t notice last Sunday’s best article, about how top violinist Josh Bell played hauntingly beautiful music incognito in the subway and got $32 in donations (plus $20 from someone who recognized him), substantially less than the $150 predicted by the National Symphony Orchestra music director. The lesson Tyler Cowen draws is "most people are ninnies, with little or no taste," but for me the lesson is how we vastly overestimate our evaluation abilities. Tyler more relevantly
The lovers example is different from the others, I think. In the others, one strives to be as accurate as possible. When thinking about one's lover, most people probably recognize that there is an amount of purposeful self-deception in what they think. Overestimating a mate's suitability for oneself - and being confident of that estimate - can help in maintaining fruitful relationships.
I think if we see any of those professionals in a professional setting, we can make an assumption before knowing their quality that they have quality.
If you listen to a professional orchestral performance, you assume everyone you hear has had years upon years of practice--and is very good--before they begin playing. Someone you see on the street, however, you assume they're not that good.
This is all based on the assumption that most people have no taste.
The cream will always float to the top. It will find out whom he has to impress and how to do it. Bad or stupid evaluating institutions can be cheated more easily buy the worthy.
I don't see much in the post that's about overconfidence. Most of the examples seem to be cases where it isn't worth the effort to make an accurate judgment.
The case of employers does seem to be an example of overconfidence and error. Maybe academics are overconfident of their referee judgments, but should they act differently if they were less confident? They have to make a binary decision of publish or reject. (But many people do argue that academics don't value originality enough, which would be a symptom of overconfidence.) Similarly, lovers may express false beliefs about their mates, but is this evidence that they've chosen the wrong time to settle down?
The examples of the musician and the supermodel suggest merely that our institutions are chasing different goals than individuals. The marginal improvements aren't worth it to the individual. Also, it may well be that they aren't doing any better, that we trust the institutions too much in their judgments of beauty and talent.
Eliezer and pdf, to be clear I was making no claim about any tendency to over or underestimate people. My claim was instead that we are overconfident in our estimates. We have lots of evidence of that regarding interviews, paper reviews, and lovers.
Robin, I can easily see how one's tendency to over- or underestimate people could be determined by your emotional disposition, shaped by genetics and upbringing, and that the tendency might be correlated with pessimism and cynicism, or with baseline happiness, or some other measure. I don't have any evidence for this, but none of your examples really ring true to me.
My personal flaw is to overestimate people, not underestimate them. In general my opinion of people decreases over time much more than it increases - a sad trend to fold into initial estimates. The only person I can recall offhand who I previously seriously underestimated is, well, Nick Bostrom actually.
I try to be conscious, when talking to people, of how poorly people seem to estimate me, and remember how poorly I may be estimating them - unfortunately since I have limited time, I still need to snap-categorize people and stop talking to the ones who are snap-categorized as insufficiently intelligent.
I gave eight examples of overconfident evaluation, yet you have all talked about only the first one. Even if that example is questionable, do you doubt the overall tendency?
As pdf suggests, one may be biased in this situation. The initial reaction towards any form of solicitation in a public place should tend to be negative. Even if one recognizes the high quality of a certain performer despite their low-quality signal, one might not want to give them money since that would encourage public solicitation in general. This seems to be a better explanation than one of taste/cognition.
Music can be objectively more difficult to perform and compose, and objectively more complex and subtle, but objectively "better" makes little sense.
B.S, there is no "objectively good" anything. There is no way to falsify the statement that something is "good" or "bad", no test that can be done, no way to settle disagreements.
On second thought, Complete are objectively superb and those who dissent do not merely hold different opinions, but are liars.
I've often wondered about objective reality in so far as art and performance may be judged as objectively good. I have a friend who claims to like music that is objectively good. Is this just a bias? Or is there objectively good music and perhaps I just don't have the ear for it?
The lovers example is different from the others, I think. In the others, one strives to be as accurate as possible. When thinking about one's lover, most people probably recognize that there is an amount of purposeful self-deception in what they think. Overestimating a mate's suitability for oneself - and being confident of that estimate - can help in maintaining fruitful relationships.
I think if we see any of those professionals in a professional setting, we can make an assumption before knowing their quality that they have quality.
If you listen to a professional orchestral performance, you assume everyone you hear has had years upon years of practice--and is very good--before they begin playing. Someone you see on the street, however, you assume they're not that good.
This is all based on the assumption that most people have no taste.
Taste, analyzed by Paul Graham: http://paulgraham.com/gooda...
PS For example, you used a mechanism to check if I am a true human being. Did it work?
The cream will always float to the top. It will find out whom he has to impress and how to do it. Bad or stupid evaluating institutions can be cheated more easily buy the worthy.
R-
Great post.
Joyce blogging? That's a scary thought.
Finnegans Wake is ironic enough bound and in the stacks.
Cheers,
-j
I don't see much in the post that's about overconfidence. Most of the examples seem to be cases where it isn't worth the effort to make an accurate judgment.
The case of employers does seem to be an example of overconfidence and error. Maybe academics are overconfident of their referee judgments, but should they act differently if they were less confident? They have to make a binary decision of publish or reject. (But many people do argue that academics don't value originality enough, which would be a symptom of overconfidence.) Similarly, lovers may express false beliefs about their mates, but is this evidence that they've chosen the wrong time to settle down?
The examples of the musician and the supermodel suggest merely that our institutions are chasing different goals than individuals. The marginal improvements aren't worth it to the individual. Also, it may well be that they aren't doing any better, that we trust the institutions too much in their judgments of beauty and talent.
If we passed a super-model on the street, we would just think her another pretty face.
Even supermodels don't look like supermodels when you see them in person. Remember that Dove ad?
Eliezer and pdf, to be clear I was making no claim about any tendency to over or underestimate people. My claim was instead that we are overconfident in our estimates. We have lots of evidence of that regarding interviews, paper reviews, and lovers.
Robin, I can easily see how one's tendency to over- or underestimate people could be determined by your emotional disposition, shaped by genetics and upbringing, and that the tendency might be correlated with pessimism and cynicism, or with baseline happiness, or some other measure. I don't have any evidence for this, but none of your examples really ring true to me.
My personal flaw is to overestimate people, not underestimate them. In general my opinion of people decreases over time much more than it increases - a sad trend to fold into initial estimates. The only person I can recall offhand who I previously seriously underestimated is, well, Nick Bostrom actually.
I try to be conscious, when talking to people, of how poorly people seem to estimate me, and remember how poorly I may be estimating them - unfortunately since I have limited time, I still need to snap-categorize people and stop talking to the ones who are snap-categorized as insufficiently intelligent.
And the more that prediction markets get used for everything and its sibling, the more highly regarded will Robin Hanson be, :-).
I gave eight examples of overconfident evaluation, yet you have all talked about only the first one. Even if that example is questionable, do you doubt the overall tendency?
As pdf suggests, one may be biased in this situation. The initial reaction towards any form of solicitation in a public place should tend to be negative. Even if one recognizes the high quality of a certain performer despite their low-quality signal, one might not want to give them money since that would encourage public solicitation in general. This seems to be a better explanation than one of taste/cognition.
Music can be objectively more difficult to perform and compose, and objectively more complex and subtle, but objectively "better" makes little sense.
B.S., is your friend a Crab, by any chance?
B.S, there is no "objectively good" anything. There is no way to falsify the statement that something is "good" or "bad", no test that can be done, no way to settle disagreements.
On second thought, Complete are objectively superb and those who dissent do not merely hold different opinions, but are liars.
I've often wondered about objective reality in so far as art and performance may be judged as objectively good. I have a friend who claims to like music that is objectively good. Is this just a bias? Or is there objectively good music and perhaps I just don't have the ear for it?