
We Can’t Get Over Ourselves: Reasons we fail to understand others - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/issue/27/dark-matter/why-we-cant-get-over-ourselves
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arafa
The biggest objection I have to self-reported studies and the conclusions
drawn from them in articles like this is that, according to research in books
like Thinking, Fast and Slow, a lot of self-reported facts (including beliefs)
are often wrong. Revealed preferences will often show that people believe
something different from what they report. And people will fervently believe
they told you the right thing. Also, a lot of the findings of these studies
end up not being repeatable or have very small effects. I've gotten to the
point where I unconsciously put little value in opinion polls and other self-
reported data, unless I have a good reason to think otherwise.

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scottLobster
I'm curious as to the rhetorical implications of all this research,
particularly regarding modern media. A TON of dialog takes place on message
boards and comment sections like this one, certainly more than on any
traditional media. It would be interesting to see whether such discussions
significantly affect popular opinion of if they're largely just outlets for
what people already believe. Even a simple poll of "have you ever changed your
mind based on information gathered from discussions on message board X?" would
be enlightening. You'd need to conduct such surveys on specific boards/sites
to get a clear picture though, as each has a unique community with different
priorities. At the very least it would be nice to get a database of which
forums have intelligent discussion and which are just full of windbags lol.

Obviously on a lot of boards the posters are just running their mouths, but it
would be interesting to poll the impacts on the lurkers as well.

~~~
ilaksh
Which part of the article addressed that? It does talk about beliefs, but not
about discussions. On one study they mentioned persuasive arguments on some
topics affected reportes beliefs the way they measured it as part of that
study, but that's not the same situation as a discussion response.

What I realized years ago is that everyone has beliefs, regardless of how
religious they are, and most discussions DO involve people trying to 'help the
other person to understand' their existing beliefs.

Its not just 'windbags'. Its almost everyone in most discussions.

And it absolutely is not something that is limited to online or any particular
media versus a face-to-face discussion. People may be more free in expressing
their beliefs online, but that doesn't mean they don't hold them in spoken
conversation -- they might keep things to themselves.

There are no forums 'full of intelligent conversation'. People _are_ able to
discuss things and sometimes gain new information or even change their minds,
but the ratio of new information going in versus explaining why your belief is
more correct than the other guy's is very small.

People _think_ that they are rational or 'scientific'. Generally though,
people are good at rationalizing what they already believed, and only change
their minds when all else fails. Including you and I.

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scottLobster
None of it. I was commenting on the implications of the information that the
article presented.

However, particularly with that line about twitter, it seems to imply that
modern methods of communication are more about confirmation than discussion.
In particular the article's point about how much is lost in text-based
communication. If I state an unpopular opinion, someone reading it might very
well fill in the "blanks" with the picture and voice of a pimply 14 year old,
which would allow them to more easily dismiss said opinion. I think it would
be interesting to more closely examine how prevalent such projective behavior
is on message boards.

My personal experience has (unfortunately) been people will almost always
stick to their guns online, even after their perspectives have been thoroughly
and undeniably refuted, even after their own allies tell them they've lost.
Best case scenario they'll lose composure completely and look like a fool
rather than admit defeat. In person, however, people will often admit that an
opponent may have a point and other such courtesies. While there is an
argument to be made that this is all superficial courtesy, it would also stand
to reason that in person an opponent has less room to rationalize, and can
detect things like passion, enthusiasm, or level-headedness that are
impossible to deny. These traits could lend subconscious credence to an
opponent's argument.

Basically I just want to take the researchers' findings on text-based
communication and examine the issue in greater detail.

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marmaduke
They save the best for last: people's own beliefs cannot (with statistical
certainty) be distinguished from people's beliefs about what God believes.

 _EDIT_ Just to specify the distinction cannot be made based on fMRI data
during verbal responses to such questions. This isn't the best or only measure
of brain activity but it's still scary result.

~~~
westoncb
This is probably just because people who a believe a god exists have
beforehand adopted beliefs that they were told are the god's. If one
maintains, "I am a believer of religion X," it's tantamount to, "my opinions
are those of X-god." Easier than doing some sort of modeling of the mind of
god and filling in the details with one's own mind, is to start with the
premise, "as a (e.g.) Christian, my beliefs are God's beliefs" and just say
what you believe.

~~~
marmaduke
This is the benign interpretation, i.e. causality flows from God to me, but
the opposite direction, or both, is I think equally likely interpretation.

~~~
sunra
That's why the most ironic passage in the bible is the bit about how "God
created man in his own image."

~~~
Asbostos
"... and man returned the favor."

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qntty
"Twitter does not allow others to understand your deep thoughts and broad
perspective. It only allows others to confirm how stupid they already think
you are."

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archibaldJ
> Logically, this sum cannot exceed 100 percent.

The chance of the sum being exactly 100% is pretty low considering that they
are subjective opinions on what percentage one thinks she or he is personally
responsible for certain activity, and the spouses are separated from each
other. As humans, we have cognitive biases and we don't access memories the
way a server does. Simply inferring that "people often overestimate their
importance in this world" from the experimental data that the couples’
estimates often added up to a number a lot bigger than 100% is an
oversimplification of the matter. But since this is general psychology it is
fine to have things this way perhaps.

~~~
Dylan16807
Plus, it doesn't really mean that people overestimate _more_ in big groups. If
everyone overestimates by 5% they might just be bad at rounding.

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redcalx
"By the time you get to groups of eight, these MBAs were claiming nearly 140
percent productivity! "

OK but the 80/20 rule suggests a couple of the MBAs are doing most of the
work, and the rest are overestimating their useful contribution. It's even
possible that the 20%ers are underestimating their contribution, which fits
the pattern of the Dunning-Kruger effect.

~~~
mikekchar
I've done some workshops on performance improvement. One of the exercises I do
is to ask people to rate, on an absolute scale of 1 to 10, how well they are
currently doing their job. 10 means "There is no possible room for
improvement". 1 means "Just barely acceptable". I don't ask people to rate
themselves as incompetent ;-). If you really think you are incompetent, then
you can write 0, though.

After they write down the number, I ask them to consider another question.
When you retire (as I usually had a young audience, this would be in about 30
years time), at what level will you be doing your job -- again on an absolute
scale from 1 to 10?

Most people score themselves as a 7 or 8 in the first question. Then in the
second question they have nowhere to go. I cruelly ask people if they intend
not to improve very much over the next 30 years :-)

The problem is that most people do not follow directions. They don't judge
themselves on an absolute scale. Their first thought is, "I'm doing well. In
fact, I'm good at my job." So they think, "5 is average. A bit over that is 7.
Obviously I've got to leave some room for improvement. I'm not perfect, so
I'll leave 9 or 10 alone".

It's the same lens effect. I am actually asking a different question than they
are answering. The interesting bit is that people skim over the internal logic
and can often conflate my actual question with the question they answered.

Here is an example. Let's say you have 10 years of experience and you have 30
years left before retirement. How much more effective will you be in 30 years
from now (as a percentage). By effective, I mean your ability to do your job
and influence people so that projects are more successful and your company
makes more money. Does it not seem reasonable that with 4 times as much
experience you might be twice as effective? Or even more?

If you answered "yes", does that mean that you should make half as much money
now (or even less!) than someone with 40 rather than 10 years of experience?
What about your title? Compared to your 30 year more senior self, how do you
rate? If you have "senior" in your title now, what should you have 30 years
from now? (maybe "god", I suppose)

People conflate the questions, "How well are you performing" , "What is your
worth", and "How much do you want to be valued". They answer the last question
and assign it to the first two questions. Because people want to be valued,
they over estimate their worth and (more critically) become blind to the fact
that they can improve. This limits their ability to increase performance.

~~~
qbrass
>Most people score themselves as a 7 or 8 in the first question. Then in the
second question they have nowhere to go. I cruelly ask people if they intend
not to improve very much over the next 30 years :-)

The first question is worded so they assume you mean their current job, and
the second one assumes they'll be doing the exact same job in 30 years.

The problem is you, not them.

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known
I prefer
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases)

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ExpiredLink
> _One of the biggest barriers to understanding others is excessive
> egocentrism._

A 'Silicon Valley' problem!

~~~
pjscott
A problem _anywhere_ people spend most of their time being themselves instead
of each other, i.e. all the places.

