
Experiments find higher social class more likely to have inflated sense of skill - tysone
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/20/science/social-class-confidence.html
======
CoolGuySteve
When I took a social psychology class long ago, they mentioned that the most
significant cultural difference between Canadians and Americans was that
Americans take overconfidence as a sign of competence whereas Canadians
perceive it as an attempt to intimidate or take advantage of someone.

Seems to apply to this article as well. Maybe 'high-class' overconfident
people become more convincing as wealth disparity widens due to the magic
sauce they must obviously possess to be so rich in the first place. It's like
Gob's bragging from Arrested Development: "The guy in the $4,000 suit is
holding the elevator for a guy who doesn’t make that in three months. Come
on!"

I'm having a hard time finding a paper about the US/Canada difference now
though, so maybe I'm wrong.

~~~
cmuguythrow
Anecdote from when I was in China. My friend and I were walking down the
street in Jinan (a big city though not one of the Major Chinese cities - think
Pittsburgh in the US) when a yellow Ferrari fishtailed around the corner,
squealing its tires and speeding away down the street. My immediate reaction -
which I imagine to be the average American reaction - was "what an asshole".
However, the Chinese around us on the street had quite a different reaction:
"wow what a cool guy/car". Not really sure what this means about the
perceptions of displays of status between the two cultures, but it's something
that has stuck with me ever since.

~~~
pm90
Same in India. Wealth is seen as a status symbol. The cultures value it, and
whoever has more is considered to be high status.

Its not hard to see why though. In industrializing countries with a lot of
income inequality, wealth is rare, and anyone who has that is seen as either
getting it through hard work, or getting it via their parents' hard work.

BTW, Americans are hardly better, see all the yatches and private jets that
corporate executives own.

~~~
foldingmoney
>Its not hard to see why though. In industrializing countries with a lot of
income inequality, wealth is rare, and anyone who has that is seen as either
getting it through hard work, or getting it via their parents' hard work.

I see it more that in these societies, the difference in quality of life
between being rich or poor can literally make the difference between living or
dying. In those conditions, the first thing you probably care about when
assessing a potential partner or friend is whether they have clean shelter and
know where their next meal is coming from, so the signaling value of money is
extremely high. Whether they have excellent taste in music is a long way down
the list.

In most developed societies, the difference between being lower middle class
or upper middle class is relatively minor, and gives people the luxury to
consider conspicuous displays of wealth to be crass, and to choose partners
based on more subtle characteristics, like their ability to write funny
comments.

~~~
pm90
That definitely makes sense.

On a similar vein, wealth often also brings protection against the State which
often abuses its own citizens (e.g. corrupt Government and police officers).
This does happen in the US as well (e.g. violence against African Americans)
but not to the same extent.

~~~
foldingmoney
It brings protection in general. Protection against sickness, famine,
servitude, and so on. The more present these threats are, the more valuable
the signaling power of money becomes.

In a world where most people are infected by a zombie virus, it might become
very important to be able to signal that you're not infected. In this world,
the fact that I'm not infected by a zombie virus is literally one of the least
interesting things about me and will rarely warrant even a passing mention.

Likewise, to me, your t-shirt that just says the word GUCCI in massive letters
tells me that you have rich parents and no aesthetic sense. In other
circumstances, to other people, it might signal that their quality of life
could be improved many times over by being with this person.

The irony becomes that these signals of disposable wealth can be so coveted
that in certain places, people's priorities will shift such that they'll
sacrifice all areas of their lives, eat nothing but the cheapest instant
noodles, and spend a year's savings on, say, a Louis Vuitton wallet which,
sadly, they'll no longer have any money to put in.

------
Animats
Distrust of overconfident people is a skill that needs to be taught. A class
on this might include film clips of famous con men and failures, from Bernie
Madoff to Shai Agassi.

Here's Bernie Madoff, after he was a crook but before he was caught.[1]

Here's Shai Agassi, before Better Place went bust spending about half a
billion on their battery swap system and putting about 30 cars on the road.[2]

What can you see there?

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auSfaavHDXQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auSfaavHDXQ)

[2]
[https://www.ted.com/talks/shai_agassi_on_electric_cars/trans...](https://www.ted.com/talks/shai_agassi_on_electric_cars/transcript?language=en)

~~~
ghostbrainalpha
A BS detection class would be interesting. It's too easy to look at videos of
famous liars like Madoff or Bill Clinton and say its easy to tell they are
lying because of their body language, in hindsight.

I would love to videos of non famous people telling lies about themselves and
try to see if I could spot the liars at greater than average percentages.

Maybe that's an idea for a fun website....

Of course event this course wouldn't help you when the liars actually believe
their own bullshit, which seems to be fairly common among the most successful
fraudsters.

~~~
dd36
Trump could be the whole class.

~~~
whenchamenia
Between trump and elon you would never run out of examples.

------
tomp
Humans have extremely skewed perception of risks and rewards. As such, "more
confidence" doesn't necessarily mean "overconfidence", but might actually mean
"less underconfidence". For example, talking to strangers and/or crowds
carries almost no _actual_ risks, and has a lot of potential benefits. On the
other hand, driving is quite risky, but we don't think twice about it...

But psychologically, most people have their perception anchored to the average
behavior, so things that are actually rational (meeting strangers) appears as
"overconfidence" and things that are actually quite reckless (driving, not
exercising, eating sugar, drinking alcohol) we think of as "normal".

~~~
snazz
Public speaking holds a high risk of embarrassment in front of a crowd
(although it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy). It’s telling that humans care more
about risk to their image than risk to their bodies, as a major difference
from most other less social species.

------
jameane
I had an interview experience not too long after I finished college. I don't
remember the specifics, but it was for an entry level administrative assistant
role. I had plenty of experience in retail, customer service, event planning
and working at the front desk of my college - so totally relevant stuff.

The interviewer asked me why I was so confident. And why I had the nerve to
want to dig into the terms of the job (salary, growth opportunities and the
like - I was a late stage candidate).

Full disclosure - I can't think of a time where I have been perceived as
arrogant at all. I am generally well-liked and personable.

The interviewer seemed to have some sort of implicit bias - I think she really
didn't think that black people should be confident in a professional
environment. I can't imagine that she would have taken similar offense to a
white guy asking those sorts of questions.

~~~
carlmr
Just one piece of anecdata. I'm white as snow and got the same question from
HR before. I also found it weird.

~~~
jameane
It's entirely possible she didn't think that way. But prior to and after that
experience I did have people (outside of an interview context) that explicitly
told me I should not have my level of confidence due to their perceived racial
expectations. So I could be overly sensitive to the whole thing.

------
whatshisface
> _“We may also need to punish overconfident behavior more than we do,” she
> said._

Who is "we?" Maybe overconfident behavior is adaptive in a world where risk-
taking works out enough of the time. Not all overconfidence takes the form of
"I rationally know I can't do it but I'll try anyway," it is often closer to,
"I rationally don't know whether or not I can do it, but I'll assume that I
can and press on."

~~~
bigred100
I think it’s very often not adaptive. Eg some parents are very confident in
their ability to conduct medical research in their spare time, and the result
is measles outbreaks.

~~~
whatshisface
Those parent's aren't "conducting medical research," they are believing what
they are hearing from sources they trust more than medical researchers (their
own friends and families). In fact, it would take _more_ self-confidence in
their ability to do research in order for them to learn the information
necessary to step back from their community evaluate the risks on their own.

------
challenger22
When you will still be wealthy regardless of the outcome of any decision you
make, you can try more things and take more risks. This fosters as confidence.
If you are competent in your risk-taking, it shows up. If you are not, it
manifests as overconfidence.

Wealth does not create overconfidence; it only reveals it.

~~~
zaphod4prez
Can you share some evidence for that claim? It doesn't seem intuitively true
to me, but I could be convinced that higher risk-tolerance tends to be
rewarded. I'd be curious to hear more about where your idea comes from.

~~~
challenger22
The "It's hard to take risks if you don't have a safety net" thread that's
been active today has plenty of evidence for it
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19958301](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19958301)).

My argument is the flip side of (and generalization of) the usual claim that
poor people are discouraged to try anything entrepeneurial.

Another competing claim could be that rich people are honestly less competent
than poor people. I could easily argue against that one; IQ and
conscientiousness are highly positively correlated with income, based on
numerous sociological studies. People who dispute this fact have an agenda.

~~~
JohnFen
> My argument is the flip side of (and generalization of) the usual claim that
> poor people are discouraged to try anything entrepeneurial.

Being poor is what made me an entrepreneur! When you have nothing to lose,
then there's little risk in rolling those dice.

~~~
nostalgk
At least in my sphere of influence, the word "poor" has changed from "has
nothing to lose" to "is in a position in which they have already lost quite a
bit".

For example, I and many of my colleagues are battling large amounts of student
loan debt; if we were truly starting from 0 and had absolutely nothing,
pursuing entrepreneurship would be at worst 0 gain and wasted time, but at
best a successful endeavor.

Realistically, however, many of the young and poor are starting from a
disadvantaged state where in reality, taking a large risk is dissuaded by the
risk of defaulting on student loan payments or shredded credit scores.

What I'm getting at is, many people would love to be truly poor rather than in
the pit, and being in the pit brings a lot more risk to the average person
(who otherwise might have the drive or skills to really make something
worthwhile)

~~~
JohnFen
> the word "poor" has changed from "has nothing to lose" to "is in a position
> in which they have already lost quite a bit"

I'm not sure that I understand the distinction you're making here. Yes, one
path to being poor is losing what you have. But in the end, such people are
just as poor as those who never had anything in the first place. They both
have nothing (more) to lose.

> many of the young and poor are starting from a disadvantaged state where in
> reality, taking a large risk is dissuaded by the risk of defaulting on
> student loan payments or shredded credit scores.

Most poor people are living in a trap of debt -- that tends to go hand-in-hand
with being poor, as is having shredded credit scores.

~~~
nostalgk
My distinction is that, for many, being poor isn't starting from the bottom,
but rather being in the hole. While they both have nothing to lose, someone
starting from the bottom has a lot more to gain given they aren't paying into
the trap of debt, and debt is very prolific given that student loan debt has
been on the rise.

~~~
JohnFen
> someone starting from the bottom has a lot more to gain given they aren't
> paying into the trap of debt

It's very hard to find a poor person who isn't saddled with debt, whether they
have student loans or not. Being poor is very expensive, after all.

That said, I don't think a person's monetary wealth can be measured by their
income alone. It has to be measured in net terms: assets (including income)
minus overhead and debts owed. A lot of people who consider themselves wealthy
are actually poor and living on borrowed (i.e., somebody else's) wealth.

------
api
From what I've personally seen the people who get away with incompetence the
most are high-charisma people. I've countless times seen people with a certain
"reality distortion field" kind of charisma spew utterly inane nonsense in
front seasoned professionals who really do know better and they just nod and
swallow it. Charisma seems to bypass the rational mind completely. It tells
the brain stem "the person speaking is an alpha primate" and the neocortex
switches off.

The inverse is also true. People with low charisma can say incredibly wise,
rational, and insightful things and they're often ignored.

IMHO a _lot_ of what is wrong with our world can be explained by this. At the
same time it also creates a contrarian opportunity to benefit by calling
bullshit on charismatic charlatans and paying attention to quieter people who
know what they're talking about.

------
purplezooey
Something in our evolution must have rewarded people who listened to that guy
in the cave who was a big talker. Seriously.

~~~
CPLX
That's plausible. A good explanation would be that in general consequences
back then were a lot more lethal. So the guy who was overconfident beyond
their abilities and rushed into battle, or into a hunting situation, or a
conflict with a neighbor, would probably end up dead pretty quickly.

So if they were expressing confidence, and still around, it would likely be
pretty directly correlated with actual ability.

It's a bit of a just-so story but it has some resonance to it.

~~~
sgift
Or the guy who was good at convincing others that it is foolproof got to live
another day if it wasn't while they died. Survival by bullshitting.

------
njharman
Lot of comments are saying confidence, not __overconfidence __. Very different
things. Confidence is great, in both you and others you are "entrusting"
somehow. The problem is lack of competence.

What is the definition of overconfidence. I'd argue being less competent than
your confidence warrants. Where as if you're competent then being confident is
"correct". The difference is whether someone is competent or not. Not if they
are confident or not.

The problem is not confidence. It's peoples in ability to gauge competence /
using confidence as an indicator of competence. Which is what the OA says, but
many comments here are diverging from that and going off on tangents about
confidence.

------
exabrial
Nyt can now detect private mode browsing? Seems like a bug in Chrome.

~~~
hashberry
It's because the browser disables certain features (I believe FileSystem API)
which makes it easier to fingerprint.

One workaround is to clear storage in devtools (Application tab) whenever
visiting NYTimes and smile that you're messing with their analytics and
tracking data.

~~~
exabrial
Can't do that on mobile ugh...

------
adolph
I think that the article didn't do a good job of explaining why a person's
overconfidence is "interpreted by strangers as competence." Maybe there are
many dimensions to competence and a deficit in one area of competence might be
made up for by a surplus in another area. Maybe "High-Class" is a multivariate
description that often includes high social competence that gives other people
an impression of generalized competence. As examples: 1. Oppenheimer's
poisoned apple and 2. Having a towel.

1 [https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/09/04/no-
mercy](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/09/04/no-mercy)

2 [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/authors/the-hitchhikers-
gu...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/authors/the-hitchhikers-guide-to-the-
galaxy-the-best-douglas-adams-quote/douglas-adams-on-the-importance-of-towels-
from-the-hitchhikers-g/)

------
rjf72
This paper was published in The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
That's interesting for two reasons. The first is that it's a rather well
regarded journal with a very high impact rate. The other is because it's one
of the journals that's driven the replication crisis plaguing psychology. [1]

In particular the journal this was published in was found to have an overall
replication rate of 23%. Another way of putting this is that if you assumed
anything you read in this journal was _not_ true, you'd be vastly more
accurately informed (nearly a 4:1 rate!) than somebody who genuinely believed
what was published in the journal.

Anyhow, back to your regularly scheduled series of anecdotal accounts
validating confirmation bias.

[1] -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis#Psychology_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis#Psychology_replication_rates)

------
jxramos
Sounds like a special instance of the _omne ignotum pro magnifico est_
proclivity of human nature.

[https://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/omne%20ignotum%20...](https://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/omne%20ignotum%20pro%20magnifico%20est)

~~~
pbhjpbhj
"the unknown appears to be amazing" or something along those lines: apparently
a Sherlock Holmes reference.

[https://study.com/academy/answer/what-does-sherlock-
holmes-p...](https://study.com/academy/answer/what-does-sherlock-holmes-
phrase-omne-ignotum-pro-magnifico-mean.html)

------
wallflower
A quote from George Foreman about longshoremen. What is real wealth?:

Mr. Foreman, who stared down financial collapse as an adult despite a
troubled, impoverished childhood, said he knew real wealth when he saw it. “If
you’re confident, you’re wealthy,” he says. “I’ve seen guys who work on a ship
channel and they get to a certain point and they’re confident. You can look in
their faces, they’re longshoremen, and they have this confidence about
them...I’ve seen a lot of guys with millions and they don’t have any
confidence,” he says. “So they’re not wealthy.”

~~~
fwip
It's easy for a multi-millionare to say "money isn't wealth."

~~~
JohnFen
True, but that doesn't make it false.

"Wealth" is one of those terms (like "success") that is pretty squishy,
though. People can, and do, disagree about what they mean.

~~~
umvi
For me, knowledge is wealth - it's the universal currency and has a long shelf
life. If you strip away all worldly possessions of any two people, the person
with more knowledge is wealthier. The best part is that you can't simply trade
money for knowledge - you have to work for it no matter how rich you are.

Bill Gates could dump a billion dollars into a world class Japanese course and
still struggle to attain fluency if he doesn't work at it with his own sweat
and mental energy.

In other words, true wealth in my opinion is the ability to generate value if
your brain/soul were dropped in a random homeless person's body in a random
era. Something tells me Paris Hilton wouldn't fare as well as Leonardo
DaVinci.

~~~
slantyyz
>> In other words, true wealth in my opinion is the ability to generate value
if your brain/soul were dropped in a random homeless person's body in a random
era. Something tells me Paris Hilton wouldn't fare as well as Leonardo
DaVinci.

If that random era is in the _past_, that's far from being true. Knowledge
doesn't mean much if that random homeless person's body belongs to an
identifiable group that is discriminated against by that era's society.

~~~
umvi
I meant more along the lines of: "what if you had to start over with a new
identity with nothing but your knowledge? How far could you get?" I'm guessing
a lot of currently rich people wouldn't fare well because they inherited the
money and have very little knowledge or skills.

~~~
scarejunba
Pretty high chance everyone is poor then because you'll be born poor in India,
China, or sub-Saharan Africa half of the time and just not get the chance.

------
sharadov
I believe the article is confusing chutzpah for overconfidence. Most wealthy
high - class people are business owners. If you can't project confidence to
the point of being overconfident, you can't be attracting people, investments
for your next venture. Look at the entrepreneur class vs the salaried class?
Wealthy people teach their kids to be supremely confident, while poor people
teach their kids to be doubting Thomases!

~~~
rc_kas
Did you read this in Enclopedia Fromthebuttica?

~~~
scarejunba
Top banter. A light-hearted way to illustrate the ridiculousness of this
assertion presented without evidence.

------
itronitron
I think the takeaway here is that people that talk a lot and think they know
it all ultimately have more opportunities for success, and are less impeded by
their limitations than their peers so the odds favor them over the long run.
That personality trait is handed down from parents to children through
breeding, most likely intentionally.

~~~
strikelaserclaw
The article mentions that this is only the case if the person is well off to
start with since they can mess up without many consequences so it isn't nearly
as damaging to have overconfidence.

------
q-base
I think part of it can be explained or attributed to a life of people
"catering" to you. Higher social class will in a lot of circles mean that a
lot of people look up to you or wants to be your friend. One way of doing that
is always giving the higher social status peer a lot of praise for anything
he/she does.

If you always receive a lot of praise for anything you do, no matter the
actual significance of it, then naturally your own perception of your skills
inflates unproportionally to reality.

------
Hoasi
> “We may also need to punish overconfident behavior more than we do,”

Unfortunately, the article doesn't expand on this idea. How or why doing so
would produce better results?

------
eevilspock
Related: Blue-collar workers who become white-collar later in life

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19946759](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19946759)

------
Diggitysc
Some of the baseline assumptions and conclusions are off in my opinion.

Specifically, it was never addressed if individuals had an inflated view of
their own skills or their ability to complete a given task.

Regardless of an individuals skill in reference to a given task (listed as
average among high-class individuals post testing), due to their wealth, high-
class individuals absolutely have a greater ability to accomplish any given
task as they have demonstrably greater social access and a larger pool of
resources to throw at any given problem.

Confidence is not a flat gauge of raw ability but also availability of
resources to accomplish a given task.

Using the "Parks and Rec" example, Bobby Newport utilizes his wealth to hire
Jennifer Barkley, an elite political campaign manager.

------
cascom
Nowhere does the research imply incompetence - the word only shows up in the
title and the last paragraph of the article...

Overconfidence != Incompetence

------
johnnycab
Class is an accent, not a bank balance.

~~~
nathancahill
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tXBC-71aZs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tXBC-71aZs)

------
ycombonator
Duh they get away with everything. Include politicians in the category.

------
cirrus-clouds
I'm from the UK where British politics is dysfunctional and rotten to the
core. Politics is overstuffed with wealthy "upper class" individuals of
breathtaking incompetence and a nasty, dishonest, duplicitous nature. Yet,
despite that, if you have a well-spoken, articulate voice and accent, the
public will perceive you as competent and sensible no matter what bollocks you
spout. Depressing.

~~~
barry-cotter
> I'm from the UK where British politics is dysfunctional and rotten to the
> core.

Oh God, it’s a disaster to watch. The Tories are repeatedly kicking themselves
in the balls publicly and Labour is run by someone who has almost no support
from MPs and who comes third after “Don’t know” in the rankings of potential
prime ministers.

~~~
viivaux
Are you talking about Corbyn? The guy with broad support despite an
unremitting smear campaign from every single corner of the media from The
Grauniad to the Beeb, never mind the tabloids? The guy who has been
astonishingly effective standing up to the Maybots and revitalised Labour?

I'm very curious what poll you're referring to there that has him after "don't
know".

~~~
ben_w
YouGov survey for the Times: [https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/polling-
shows-voters...](https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/polling-shows-voters-
opt-for-may-but-even-more-don-t-know-dmm8sghrg)

I used to like him. I wish he _was_ all that you call him.

~~~
viivaux
An online poll. Huh.

What did I 'call him' that you disagree with?

~~~
ben_w
That he has “broad support“, that he has “been astonishingly effective”, and
that he has “revitalised Labour”. I wish all those things were true.

Unrelated: while YouGov is indeed online, it chooses which people to send the
surveys to and has long-term profiles on each of them, so unlike a silly
Twitter poll it has decent statistical relevance and the biases seem to be
persistent, well quantified, and generally accounted for — you shouldn’t
dismiss it just because you don’t like what it’s saying.

------
skookumchuck
People who achieve success were often initially derided as delusional,
overconfident, etc. Overconfidence, in other words, gave them the impetus to
try, and it's amazing how trying gets results in achieving the impossible.

On the other side, I see time after time competent people giving up at the
very first (and often trivial) obstacle.

> We may also need to punish overconfident behavior more than we do

This smacks more of a desire to tear down people one is envious of than a
recipe for improving society.

------
antt
I find it odd how Americans try to convince themselves there are a lot of ways
to be high class. A doctor might have slightly better standing than a plumber
but ask yourself this, who would be served first in a restaurant, the doctor,
the plumber, or the millionaire who just drove in on a Ferrari with a model on
each arm?

~~~
dazilcher
There are more American millionaires than you imagine. Heck, I bet half the
people posting here qualify.

I'm not sure your point, as stated, makes sense.

~~~
Terr_
> There are more American millionaires than you imagine.

Mainly because the word means less-and-less wealth over time, due to
inflation. The millionaires of 1959 were easily 6 times wealthier than the
millionaires of 2019.

~~~
geobmx540
8.69x just by inflationary measures ($8,693,183.39,
[https://www.dollartimes.com/inflation/inflation.php?amount=1...](https://www.dollartimes.com/inflation/inflation.php?amount=1&year=1959))

~~~
Terr_
Whoops, I think I intended to write ~1969 to get it to 50 years (and was using
a different estimator) but regardless of exact measure, the trend is clear:
"Millionaire" has been undergoing continual debasement ever since it was
coined around the 1820s, and means objectively different things within
different generations.

