We see social norms as more relevant when predicting the average behavior of a group, relative to predicting an individual’s behavior: In judgments of morally relevant behaviors, forecasters estimated that a randomly selected individual (e.g., a student) would act more selflessly (e.g., give to charity) than would the population from which the individual was drawn (e.g., the student body). … When considering how an individual will behave, people give weight to an individual-level force on behavior: what an individual’s moral conscience would lead one to do. When considering a population, forecasters give more emphasis to a group-level force on behavior: social norms and pressures. … Individuals were [also] forecast as more likely than populations to perform behaviors that emerge primarily because of an individual-level force—a person’s will—but not behaviors that are encouraged by social norms. (
A number of commenters have said something to the effect of "but individuals can be different than the average". Yes, that's true. And the standard deviation reflects how far from the mean we might expect them to be. But we DON'T know in which direction they will deviate from the mean. There is no more reason to believe a random person will be more selfless than average than to believe they will be more selfish. The expected value of their deviation from the average is zero, even if the expected absolute value of said deviation is positive.
This would seem to be explained by the converse of the principle that far-mode averages and near-mode adds. In effect, if you are looking at averages, it will elicit far-mode; if you're looking at an individual case, it will elicit near-mode.
This line of reasoning suggests that it's not a matter of individual versus group. If you ask about a single individual's compliance with morality over a course of time, you'd get far-mode effects.
I think this is a combination of two things. First, from the law of large numbers, a single event can break free from the average, but the average can't. Secondly, our minds want to predict pattern and not simply resort to broad averages. I don't have the link, but I remember a study where if you show the left brain a sequence of lights that flash above the line 80% of the time, rats and pigeons and 4-year olds do better than adults because our left, theorizing side, tries to guess which one will be above or below the line, matching only the relative frequency, but wasting many choices below the line. So, given the possibility of the individual breaking free of the mean, our pattern finder goes to work, often without benefit.
I agree with Dave on this. There must be an equal contribution from every individual in order to keep a balance.http://www.genericviagra123...
A number of commenters have said something to the effect of "but individuals can be different than the average". Yes, that's true. And the standard deviation reflects how far from the mean we might expect them to be. But we DON'T know in which direction they will deviate from the mean. There is no more reason to believe a random person will be more selfless than average than to believe they will be more selfish. The expected value of their deviation from the average is zero, even if the expected absolute value of said deviation is positive.
Um, what? Say group A has two subgroups: A1 gives $0 and A2 gives $10. If |A1|=|A2|, the average is $5, but no individual gave $5.
This would seem to be explained by the converse of the principle that far-mode averages and near-mode adds. In effect, if you are looking at averages, it will elicit far-mode; if you're looking at an individual case, it will elicit near-mode.
This line of reasoning suggests that it's not a matter of individual versus group. If you ask about a single individual's compliance with morality over a course of time, you'd get far-mode effects.
I think this is a combination of two things. First, from the law of large numbers, a single event can break free from the average, but the average can't. Secondly, our minds want to predict pattern and not simply resort to broad averages. I don't have the link, but I remember a study where if you show the left brain a sequence of lights that flash above the line 80% of the time, rats and pigeons and 4-year olds do better than adults because our left, theorizing side, tries to guess which one will be above or below the line, matching only the relative frequency, but wasting many choices below the line. So, given the possibility of the individual breaking free of the mean, our pattern finder goes to work, often without benefit.
A randomly-selected member of group A will, on average, give exactly the average gift of group A.
Isn't this basically true of all predilections? More impactful to groups than to individual? As a matter of statistics?