The Drunkard's Walk. A look at judgemental filters

[McGrupp]

I just finished reading The Drunkard's walk. How Randomness Rules Our Lives by Richard Mlodinow. It's a very good read and discusses the role of randomness in our interpretation of both events and statistics. Most of the book details the history of the study of randomness and probability. It also focuses on how our perceptions can be fooled and our judgement skewed by them. While the studies of various fallacies and biases are really interesting as well as the history, what really got me is the last couple of chapters.

In these chapters Mlodinow discusses how we are biased when interpreting information touched by randomness. Humans are hardwired to discern patterns whether they exist or not. A good example of this is the way we perceive the stock exchange. There are numerous experts in the field, many who get paid top dollar for their opinions. However when you chart the graph of the performance of 800 mutual fund managers over a five year period the results are a bell curve, which indicates that the actual effects of these experts are about the same as random chance.

However if you look at the past performance of various funds it is easy to find reasons why they succeeded or failed. Mlodinow states that there is a fundamental asymmetry between the past and future. Whether it is stocks or brownian motion of a molecule in water the results are easy to understand after the fact but impossible to predict beforehand. He goes on to describe a similar aspect to history, where millions of tiny chances, many of them random will result in what will appear to be inevitable.

Historians, whose profession is to study the past, are as wary as scientists of the idea that events unfold in a manner that can be predicted. In fact, in the study of history the illusion of inevitability has such serious consequences that it is one of the few things that both conservative and socialist historians can agree on. The socialist historian Richard Henry Tawney, for example, put it like this: "Historians give an appearance of inevitability...by dragging into prominence the forces which have triumphed and thrusting into the background those which they have swallowed up." And the historian Roberta Wohlstetter, who received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Ronald Reagan, said it this way: "After the event, of course, a signal is always crystal clear; we can now see what disaster it was signalling...But before the event it is obscure and pregnant with conflicting meanings.

I'm not sure I completely agree with this as I think that some level of prediction can be attained. However the adage 'hindsight is 20/20' also rings true.

I'm not sure if I did justice to the above, but what I really wanted to get into was the way our expectations alter our view of the world. A prime example of this is how moviegoers will report enjoying a movie more if they hear about how good it was before hand. At the end of the book Mlodinow brings up several experimental examples of how our expectations can bias us in terms of success. Humans have a tendency to view success and failure by results and by monetary compensation.


Mlodinow looks at several experiments done by Melvin Lerner in the 1960s. Lerner wanted to look into society's negative attitudes towards the poor.

Realizing that "few people would engage in extended activity if they believed that there were a random connection between what they did and the rewards they recieved." Lerner concluded that "for the sake of their own sanity," people overestimate the degree to which ability can be inferred from success. We are inclined, that is, to see movie stars as more talented than aspiring movie stars and to think that the richest people in the world are the smartest.

It seems like a very plausible explanation for the widespread belief in our society that if you are poor it is your own fault. If that doesn't sound like the viewpoint of every bootstrap libertarian out there, I don't know what does.

In one of Lerner's experiments groups were taken into a viewing room and asked to watch 2 people perform a task. They were told that due to budget constraints only one of the two would be paid and that this would be determined randomly. The 2 people perfoming the task were actors and performed from a prearranged script which was designed to show that they were equal at the task. At the end of the session the group was asked to judge which was the more competent worker. Despite knowing that the one who was paid was random they always selected the one who was paid by a large margin.

In another experiment groups were brought into a room to perform the task of viewing black and white slides. They were asked to determine whether the slide contained more black or white. These groups were compensated with money and all knew how much the others recieved. The groups that were compenated evenly cooperated and discussed with each other. The groups in which one member was paid more found that the more compensated member had a tendency to resist the input of others. Even random differences in pay led to a backward inference of differences in skill.

This expectation bias extends beyond just monetary notions. The psychologist David L. Rosenhan conducted an experiment where 8 "pseudopatients" of various background made an appointment at various hospitals. They arrived alleging that they were hearing voices. Other than false names and the one symptom all the participants described their lives honestly. The subjects later reported that they were concerned that they would be found out almost immediately. However all but one was admitted to the hospital with a diagnosis of schizophrenia. The remaining patient was admitted with a diagnosis of manic-depressive psychosis.

Upon admission they all ceased simulating the symptom of the voices. Their instructions were to then behave normally and and wait until the staff noticed that they were not in fact insane. None of the staff noticed. When viewed through the lens of insanity all of their behavior seemed to reinforce that claim. From writing in a diary to showing up to the cafeteria early the staff made notes chronicling what they percieved as abnormal behavior. Other patients however regularly challenged the "pseudopatients" stating that 'you must be a journalist or something, you're not crazy'

After an average stay of 19 days all the participants were released as "no danger to themselves or others". The fallout embarrassed the mental hospitals in question with many denying such a thing were possible.

The cord that tethers ability to success is both loose and elastic. It is easy to see fine qualities in successful books or to see unpublished manuscripts, inexpensive vodkas, or people struggling in any field as somewhat lacking. It is easy to believe that ideas that worked were good ideas, that plans that succeeded were well designed, and that ideas and plans that did not were ill conceived. And it is easy to make heroes out of the most successful and to glance with disdain at the least. But ability does not guarantee achievement, nor is achievement proportional to ability. And so it is important to always keep in mind the other term in the equation- the role of chance.

I find all of this fascinating as well as topical to issues that get discussed here. None of us are immune to the biases of our expectations. Indeed they seem like very good examples of the bars of the prison. I know that I am not immune. When a homeless man asks me for a smoke I give it to him. However I admit that in the back of my mind I think 'oh you're homeless and you smoke. You must waste your money on other things. That's why you're homeless' or even simply to assume that a homeless person has mental or drug problems. It's a wrong way to think and I'm not proud of that. I do my best not to think like that. But like an honest teacher who grades the similar papers of an excellent student higher than that of an average student, none of us are immune. The best we can do is be aware of our own biases.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Going to have to reread this when the mind is a bit clearer, looks interesting.