How to act less stupid, according to psychologists | Hacker News Reader

How to act less stupid, according to psychologists

washingtonpost.com

96 pointsnkurz57 comments

After a moribund launch of my well-intentioned startup in 2012, I know understand what others meant by "you have a lot of courage" (to leave your job and take the risks). What they mostly meant really is that I had the courage to look stupid. Except I didn't know that or care much for what "bravery" meant.

What was your startup about, and what happened?

You mean, what was the name of the game? You can still call it Riding the Gravy Train [1].

Summary of Failure: Failed to close enterprise sales leads. (Started with the erroneous assumption that being technically able to develop an MVP will prove sufficient to "sell" to enterprises.)

  Reasons:  
  1.  Small team (enterprises no like small teams [sic] ... unless ... but we learned the "unlesses" only recently)
  2.  Small team part II - fewer initial leads to grow from consultancy domain experience
  3.  Sales pitches always too technical.
  4.  Solution offering too monolithic (modules preferred by enterprises)
  5.  High overheads during sales periods (enterprise sales lead times went on for 24 months!)
  6.  Couldn't adequately manage emotional temperament during dry spell (spending on overheads - salaries esp didn't help) - resulting in poor major and minor knock-on decisions.
  7.  Emotional Temperament Part II - weak emotional resolve affected creative aspect of job (building the MVP).  Health suffered too with stress.  Spiralled.

However, and the irony is amazing - we closed our first sale after 2 years. This after letting go two staffers and an office, right before switching the lights off.

We build from here. Making new mistakes. And looking stupid for an analysis of decisions later on.

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[1] "Have A Cigar" by Pink Floyd

Come in here, dear boy, have a cigar. You're gonna go far, you're gonna fly high, You're never gonna die, you're gonna make it if you try; they're gonna love you.

Well, I've always had a deep respect, and I mean that most sincerely. The band is just fantastic, that is really what I think. Oh by the way, which one's Pink?

And did we tell you the name of the game, boy? We call it Riding the Gravy Train.

We're just knocked out. We heard about the sell out. You gotta get an album out, You owe it to the people. We're so happy we can hardly count.

Everybody else is just green, have you seen the chart? It's a helluva start, it could be made into a monster If we all pull together as a team.

And did we tell you the name of the game, boy? We call it Riding the Gravy Train.

>You mean, what was the name of the game?

The parent poster was wondering what product or service your startup offered.

Yep!

> Acting in a way that isn't considered stupid is a goal shared by most reasonable people, but many of them likely overlook one key attribute that might allow them to better achieve it: modesty.

Unfortunately that doesn't pay. We're somehow encouraged to take risks here.

I suspect that's an important part of why confident ignorance is seen as the "stupidest" trait. Being confident has social advantages, so without a significant risk of looking stupid for overlooking something, everyone would try to be confident all the time, and confidence would have a very low signal-to-noise ratio for determining who to trust.

The problem is that a lot of people are constantly trying to look confident, but trying to avoid paying for mistakes at the same time. They prefer situations when their confidence is hard to check. A whole culture is developed around that and Scott Adams' Dilbert series has large supply of situations when confidence trumps modesty.

> trying to avoid paying for mistakes at the same time

I observe that many people appear to be successful at avoiding their own suffering and offload it to someone else. It's far easier to blame someone else and judge them harshly, than accept our own hand in the matter. Looking confident is simply avoidance of work, or more bluntly, just being lazy.

Oh, that's a good point. I wonder if the study would produce different results if the people in the overconfidence situations owned up to their failures? Or maybe it'd be considered just as stupid an action, but not done by as stupid a person...?

The fear of looking stupid is probably what stops most people from ever doing anything interesting.

I do see an occasional startup fumblebrag and think to myself "that was a stupid idea." But I rarely think anybody is stupid for trying.

I think there's a difference between the fear you speak of and modesty. I can be modest and not have a fear of looking stupid. I just refrain from being stupid through modesty. When it matters I take risks and may be considered stupid, but as you say not stupid for trying.

> "If you don't want to do something stupid, you probably don't want to have higher expectations of your abilities than you should," Balazs said. "The worst thing someone can do is act confidently, and seriously, and still not act rationally. That's as stupid as it gets."

That, in my opinion, is totally stupid ;)

It's hard to assess ones abilities without risk of looking stupid. But of course, one must hedge the bet prudently.

Indeed.

If ALL we're interested in is what others /think/ of us, then by all means let's hedge our bets in that regard. If looking stupid however is a byproduct of a longer journey to achieving something, then who cares what others think about our intelligence or our paraded stupidity.

But if looking stupid affects our chances of achieving what we set out to achieve, then we should be more circumspect before acting.

Not an American, but living in the U.S.

That quote is fairly eye opening. My culture is quite a bit more modest than the general American culture, to a degree that "confident" Americans are fairly annoying for not being modest.

That's a very good way to put it, and yes, you're right, it's ingrained in this (HN/Tech) and the more general American culture.

I don't know how to explain it. It's fucking annoying. While programming, I have to remain focused and mentally aware. While talking to anyone at work, I have to act like a ditzzy vally girl or hippy of some type. If I don't do this, I'm pegged as a threat. I've found that I can really only get shit done in a remote office, otherwise I'm circle jerking the whole staff. In short, some of us Americans hate it too.

> While talking to anyone at work, I have to act like a ditzzy vally girl or hippy of some type. If I don't do this, I'm pegged as a threat.

That's hilarious. I'm just sitting here imagining a bunch of hippies and valley girls eyeing a tired, geeky programmer and going "Oh my god he is like such a threat to our organization??"

"He's harshing our facade."

to be honest, to most cultures out here/there general average American is by far the loudest person around, beyond any modesty. Usually not really appreciated, and the more traditional (ie didn't change that much in last 500 years) the culture is, the worse the effect.

Personally I like it, a very different approach to self-presentation, that in some situations is more effective than usual shy polite careful... whatever,.

But if you go backpacking in remote places somewhere in south asia for example, it can cause a bit of friction with locals sometimes.

I've always found British and Australians to be the loudest. Americans are certainly on that side of the spectrum though

I can assure you that there's a whole culture of Americans that aren't loud, but they don't tend to travel the world or congregate in big cities, and aren't much represented on TV except as gross caricatures.

> that in some situations is more effective than usual shy polite careful... whatever,.

I think this is where the difference is perceived rather than real.

I'm not shy, but I am polite. It's a virtue, not a bad thing. I generally (in social/relational situations) put others above myself. This is really networking 101, ask questions and listen, rather than make everything about yourself.

Now you characterized modest culture/people in a narrow minded way, just because that's not who you are. And I then in return gave it some more depth and ended with characterizing the "american" side in a narrow minded way.

I do see and understand your comment. I think there are upsides and downsides to both. You prefer yours and I see why I don't blame you for it. I prefer mine for different reasons. We both really are focused on the upsides of our own choices and then slowly try to incorporate the upsides of the opposite.

If we take calculated risks where we know about the small probability of success (in the case of startups) and perhaps employ risk-mitigating measures and justify the whole enterprise with the problem to be solved or the possible payoff, we're still confident but not ignorant (and thus stupid).

I don't experience that people call me somehow stupid for what I do. Perhaps because I tell them I know about the dangers, how I manage them, that my approach is not necessarily the best approach for other people (invalidating their choices).

1. Didn't see that coming. (had information, chose to ignore, possibly by way of narcissism or hubris)

2. Couldn't help themselves. (lack of impulse control, compulsive behavior)

3. Space cadets. (lack of full circumstantial awareness)

The reverse of all of these being, of course, overly cautious, prudent behavior. A coward.

The brave and the stupid.

Maybe some of us are just lucky.

Well said!

Cowards are just jealous ;)

It seems that striking a balance between these traits is best. You have to do things and learn from your mistakes to keep from doing stupid stuff. But you also don't want to go so far that you look like a total idiot.

In my humble and cautious opinion, somebody prudent and cautious is not a coward. That's the reason because we have different words.

Prudent is to know that your chances are not good and then refrain yourself despise the pressure you could feel to act.

To be brave is to be scared but to realize that is the moment to act and do it. To be coward is the same but not acting.

You have to be scared to be brave.

To be stupid is not to be scared when you should be.

Knowing how to balance all that would be being wise.

First of all, the opposite of "coward" isn't "brave", it's "foolhardy". Also, I don't understand what use these two concepts have. Risks are a continuum, and rewards are a continuum. Multiply the two together, and you get ROI. Everyone has a minimum ROI before they do something (you wouldn't jump in front of a train to retrieve a penny), it's just that some people have a higher threshold than others. When is the threshold "too high" and "too low", giving us cowards and foolhardy people, respectively?

It's all subjective, and a matter of preference. Denigrating people because they don't have the same preference as you is a dick move.

One can be cautious without being overly cautious. And one can prudently take risks.

An example of stupid behavior might be betting $10,000 that you will win the office March Madness pool, because you personally know the coach of Duke and are just convinced that he is a winner that will go all the way. That's stupid.

But if you are Warren Buffet and bet $1 billion (with a 'b') that no one at all will correctly call every game in this years NCAA basketball tournament[0], that's not stupid, that's informed and prudent risk-taking.

[0] http://time.com/34358/no-one-won-warren-buffetts-1-billion-b...

"If you don't want to do something stupid, you probably don't want to have higher expectations of your abilities than you should..." I disagree with this statement. I believe that enlightenment, not stupidity, results from pushing our expectations. I think modesty is more important when it comes to understanding the factors that contributed to an outcome, "stupid" or not.

I guess the difference is how you handle the risk of failure. Dismiss it because you think you won't fail, or prepare for it because you're aware you might?

Depends on what you call enlightenment. In the zen/taoist sense, it actually results from _dropping_ your expectations, ie. just do your stuff.

I would agree. I would suggest that people who are skilled, and good at what they do did not get to that state without making mistakes that could fall into the categories described in the article as stupid. The trick is, as you say, to determine why said mistakes occured, and importantly to avoid making the same stupid mistakes in the future.

The best practitioners of "insert discipline here" are those that have made all the (survivable) mistakes.

I'm a bit disappointed by the lack of source. Is anyone aware if the findings were published somewhere? There's a lot of hand waving and voodoo magic in psychology, so I try to take this type of article with a grain of salt.

This appears to be the source of the main study in the article. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289615...

> When given a math problem, for instance, an intelligent person might assume they aren't capable of the same thinking errors that their peers are, which, in turn, makes them more prone to commit them.

This is the big truth of this article. So many of the worst people I know make the assumption they can never be wrong because of schooling / general overconfidence.

I also know a number of people (myself included) who are prone to this problem. Most of them are not the worst people I know. :)

The ones I know become huge jerks if you cast doubt on their answers.

I've seen those too. I don't know if this field attracts those types, or if they're everywhere.

Number 1 is the Dunning Kruger effect https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect

(A favourite of mine and a regular on HN I bet)

Ok, so now let's use this new-found wisdom we have about our D-K blind spot. How do we ensure that we don't both fall into a D-K blind spot scenario and we don't ever act (make decisions)?

Is the D-K "wisdom" useful?

I haven't the faintest idea.

I say stupid stuff all the time.

Also - I tend toward the more negative end of the spectrum, i.e. I don't have the confidence, but I'm probably smarter than 90% of the population. Aaaand - as a Brit - Just saying that is making me cringe with embarrassment.

Smarter than 90% of the population would be an IQ of 120 (s.d. 15) which is pretty high. You can test yourself here: http://www.iqtest.dk/ . Let us know if you got your 120. :)

When starting an unfamiliar task, seek out an objective way to measure your performance of the task. Use it.

A different way to phrase the wisdom is that accurate self assessment is a valuable learning aid.

The following contradiction is pasted from the British actuarial notes: (hopefully within the terms of fair use)

"Overconfidence

People tend to overestimate their own abilities, knowledge and skills. For example, if you ask 100 people if they are better than average drivers, then you might not be surprised if more than 50% of them reply “yes”!

Moreover, studies show that the discrepancy between accuracy and overconfidence increases (in all but the simplest tasks) as the respondent is more knowledgeable! (Accuracy increases to a modest degree but confidence increases to a much larger degree. ) If this is true then it may not be wise to pass the Subject ST5 exam!

Overconfidence could therefore be a potentially serious problem in fields such as investment where most of the participants are likely to be highly knowledgeable.

Moreover, the available evidence suggests that even when people are aware that they are overconfident they remain so."

> People tend to overestimate their own abilities, knowledge and skills. For example, if you ask 100 people if they are better than average drivers, then you might not be surprised if more than 50% of them reply “yes”!

Also people don't actually need to think they're great drivers to think this– there's a selection bias at play. We remember every single time some other driver almost killed us, far more than we notice when people are driving nice and smooth.

It's also a bad example. "A better driver" is a subjective term and may mean different things to different people. In fact, I would be surprised if fewer than 60% of drivers were in the top 50% when measured objectively on their own criteria.

> if you ask 100 people if they are better than average drivers, then you might not be surprised if more than 50% of them reply “yes”!

Isn't it fully possible that most people are better than the average? Most people e.g. have more arms than average.

Exactly. If you had a very low outlier, you could easily have >75% smarter than average and it would be accurate.

The arms distribution is an unusual example of a left skewed distribution. Mostly we are thinking of right skewed distributions, where there are lots of observations humped up towards zero, and then they spread out towards infinity, or symmetrical distributions. In the latter two cases the average would be above or equal to the median, so most people would be worse than or equal to the average.

There is a book about that - Thinking Fast And Slow.)

There are certain advantages to looking stupid.

Be stupid is cool

Well, that's 7.2 minutes I'll never get back. Who's stupid now, brah?

> "The stupidest thing someone can do is overestimate themselves,"

I wonder if this is part of the reason people self-sabotage with comments like, "It's just a beta, I was rushed, I haven't implemented X yet...", because they don't want to appear confident and then fall short?

> For example, ingested substances or excessive social support can promote confidence disproportionate to competence.

I would sum this up with the phrase, "Hold my beer..."

> "The stupidest thing someone can do is overestimate themselves," [from the OP] //

That's a worrying conclusion - there's a thin line between not trying for fear of failure and considering that it's only rational that something is beyond you so you should not try.

My young son has many times told me he is unable and will always be incapable of doing certain things. Many of those things he can now do because we didn't accept his considered limitations. To his mind we were overestimating his ability to do and to learn to do.

IMO sometimes it's right to try even when we [feel we] know we will fail - drink driving isn't one of those times [except in very limited circumstances where it could be made relatively safe (cf Mythbusters)].

The researchers seem to call a lot of things stupidity; ignorance IMO is not always through stupidity, equating lack of self-control and stupidity again seems strange to me. There's some overlap for sure.

Lastly, isn't part of the point of the movie Forrest Gump that the eponymous hero does things that are out of ignorance or apparent low-intelligence but that are nevertheless revealed to be acts of heroism, inner-strength, love, longstanding fortitude. Lieutenant Dan doesn't hold back in showing how foolish he sees Gump but "Stupid is as stupid does" and it turns out what Forrest does - courage under fire, friendship with the friendless, gumption beyond normal endurance, and willingness to just do [ignorant, or perhaps wilfully dismissive, of those who see or call him as stupid] - isn't stupid after all.

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