Advice Shows Status

Mar 30, 2015

When we give and seek advice, we think and talk as if we mainly just want to exchange useful information on the topic at hand. But seeking someone’s advice shows them respect, especially if that advice is followed. And in fact, a lot of our advice giving and taking behavior can be better understand in such status terms:

When making decisions together, we tend to give everyone an equal chance to voice their opinion. To make the best decisions, however, each opinion must be scaled according to its reliability. Using behavioral experiments and computational modelling, we tested (in Denmark, Iran, and China) the extent to which people follow this latter, normative strategy. We found that people show a strong equality bias: they weight each other’s opinion equally regardless of differences in their reliability, even when this strategy was at odds with explicit feedback or monetary incentives. (more)

Individuals in powerful positions are the worst offenders. According to one experimental study, they feel competitive when they receive advice from experts, which inflates their confidence and leads them to dismiss what the experts are telling them. High-power participants in the study ignored almost two-thirds of the advice they received. Other participants (the control and low-power groups) ignored advice about half as often. … Research shows that they value advice more if it comes from a confident source, even though confidence doesn’t signal validity. Conversely, seekers tend to assume that advice is off-base when it veers from the norm or comes from people with whom they’ve had frequent discord. (Experimental studies show that neither indicates poor quality.) Seekers also don’t embrace advice when advisers disagree among themselves. And they fail to compensate sufficiently for distorted advice that stems from conflicts of interest, even when their advisers have acknowledged the conflicts and the potential for self-serving motives. … Though many people give unsolicited advice, it’s usually considered intrusive and seldom followed. Another way advisers overstep is to chime in when they’re not qualified to do so. … many advisers take offense when their guidance isn’t accepted wholesale, curtailing further discussion. (more)

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brendan_r

May 15, 2023

But these results aren't fine grained at all compared to reality! And they're also trivial.

Just this past week on a flag football team I run I had to figure out how to cope with certain new fairly talented players who are bad for chemistry because they're, a) not smart, b) arrogant, and c) always trying to switch our defensive schemes mid-game, sometimes with out consulting anybody else! (Anarchy is always a problem in these sorts of leagues because there is no official coach figure.)

You don't need to consult the literature to know that, in this context, a) you've gotta find a way prevent dumb ideas from influencing the team, and b) gladhanding the morons works better than demeaning them. (But they still are morons, and I wonder whether you're compartmentalizing your preference for decision-egalitarianism; you really think you'd maintain that attitude if forced to work frequently w/ common people?)

But there are an infinite variety of real world contexts, and what works will vary between them in far more ways than any study can capture.

I see zero evidence that having an extensive knowledge of any literature has anything to do w/ managing groups well. Rather it is some combo of IQ, charisma, objectivity, and gobs of real world experience.

That's because we've got good native mental modules for doing these sorts of things. And their existence makes it much less likely an academic can spread delusions here than in something like macroeconomics, which Keynes refers to.

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