philip tetlock preacher, prosecutor, politician

Conventional vs. new views of intelligence: Psychologists find that test takers who second-guess their answers usually have better outcomes with their revised answers. Alternative view: intelligence is the ability to rethink and unlearn, i.e. The interviewer serves as a guide, not a leader or advisor. Youre expected to doubt what you know, be curious about what you dont know, and update your views based on new data.. Opening story: Mike Lazaridis, the founder of the BlackBerry smartphone. Interrogate information instead of simply consuming it. Chapter 11: Escaping Tunnel Vision. So argues Wharton professor Adam Grant in a fascinating new interview. In one of historys great ironies, scientists today know vastly more than their colleagues a century ago, and possess vastly more data-crunching power, but they are much less confident in the prospects for perfect predictability. Preachers work well with a congregation. Competence and confidence dont progress at the same rate: Humility is often misunderstood. Conflicts of interest and the case of auditor independence: Moral Seduction and Strategic Issue Cycling. Philip Tetlock: It virtually always influences how people make decisions, but it's not always good. Scientist: Grant appends this professional worldview to Tetlocks mindset models. When were locked in preacher mode, we are set on promoting our ideas (at the expense of listening to others). Strong opinions like stereotypes and prejudice are less likely to be reconsidered. We wont have much luck changing other peoples minds if we refuse to change ours. Recognize complexity as a signal of credibility., Psychologists find that people will ignore or even deny the existence of a problem if theyre not fond of the solution.. In practice, they often diverge.. GET BOOK > Unmaking the West: What-if scenarios that rewrite world history Tetlock, P.E., Lebow, R.N., & Parker, G. The Dunning-Kruger effect: Identifies the disconnect between competence and confidence. In other words, they may as well have just guessed. flexible thinking. Pp. Tetlock has advanced variants of this argument in articles on the links between cognitive styles and ideology (the fine line between rigid and principled)[31][32] as well as on the challenges of assessing value-charged concepts like symbolic racism[33] and unconscious bias (is it possible to be a "Bayesian bigot"?). Presumes the world is divided into two sides: believers and non-believers. Confident humility: An ideal wherein the individual has faith in their abilities but retains sufficient doubt and flexibility to recognize they could be wrong. The tournaments solicited roughly 28,000 predictions about the future and found the forecasters were often only slightly more accurate than chance, and usually worse than basic extrapolation algorithms, especially on longerrange forecasts three to five years out. Tetlock first discusses arguments about whether the world is too complex for people to find the tools to understand political phenomena, let alone predict the future. How Can We Know? Keeping your books The tournament challenged GJP and its competitors at other academic institutions to come up with innovative methods of recruiting gifted forecasters, methods of training forecasters in basic principles of probabilistic reasoning, methods of forming teams that are more than the sum of their individual parts and methods of developing aggregation algorithms that most effectively distill the wisdom of the crowd.[3][4][5][6][7][8]. Cons: The pattern of bookending every chapter with an anecdote gets tiresome. Superforecasting is both a fascinating leap into the art of decision making as well as a manual for thinking clearly in an increasingly uncertain world. Apparently, "even the most opinionated hedgehogs become more circumspect"[9] when they feel their accuracy will soon be compared to that of ideological rivals. Philip Tetlock carries out "forecasting tournaments" to test peoples' ability to predict complex events. Opening story: International debate champion Harish Natarajan vs. Debra Jo Prectet (later revealed to be a computer AI). Psychologically unsafe settings hide errors to avoid penalties. Political Psychology, 15, 509-530. Ellen Ochoa (NASA astronaut and director) 3x5 note card reminded her to ask these questions: How do you know? is an important question to ask both of ourselves and of others. Since 2011, he has been the Annenberg University Professor at the University of Pennsylvania. We can demonstrate openness by acknowledging where we agree with our critics and even what weve learned from them.. Chapter 5: Dances with Foes. Many beliefs are arbitrary and based on flimsy foundations. As social beings, we are motivated to seek belonging and status. Search for truth through testing hypotheses, running experiments, and uncovering new truths. Poking Counterfactual Holes in Covering Laws: Cognitive Styles and Historical Reasoning. He coined the term superforecaster to refer to individuals with particularly good judgment, who are able to foresee future outcomes far more accurately than your average person. Accountability is a multidimensional concept. And only when we are proven wrong so clearly that we can no longer deny it to ourselves will we adjust our mental models of the worldproducing a clearer picture of reality. Values retain flexibility that opinions do not. Philip Tetlock, Lu Yunzi, Barbara Mellers (2022), False Dichotomy Alert: Improving Subjective-Probability Estimates vs. Raising Awareness of Systemic Risk, International Journal of Forecasting. We hesitate at the very idea of rethinking., When it comes to our own knowledge and opinions, we often favor. The purpose of learning isnt to affirm our beliefs; its to evolve our beliefs., The rethinking cycle: Humility => Doubt => Curiosity => Discovery, The overconfidence cycle: Pride => Conviction => Confirmation and Desirability Biases => Validation, Chapter 2: The Armchair Quarterback and the Imposter. Optimism and big-picture thinking will help you sell your business idea. Changing your mind is a sign of moral weakness. (2005). This book fills that need. Even criticize them. The Good Judgment Project involves tens of thousands of ordinary peopleincluding a Brooklyn filmmaker, a retired pipe installer, and a former ballroom . Outrage goes viral and makes for better sound bites. Conventional view: intelligence is the ability to think and learn. Practical tip: Favor content that presents many sides of an issue rather than a singular or binary view. Binary bias: The human tendency to seek clarity by reducing a spectrum of categories to two opposites. GET BOOK > Their conclusions are predetermined. ), Research in organizational behavior (vol. How Can We Know? Intelligent management of intelligence analysis: Escaping the blame game by signaling commitment to trans-ideological epistemic values. Philip Tetlock, Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction 3 likes Like "Here's a very simple example," says Annie Duke, an elite professional poker player, winner of the World Series of Poker, and a former PhD-level student of psychology. [3] The original aim of the tournament was to improve geo-political and geo-economic forecasting. Psychological safety: The ability to take risks without fear of punishment or reprisal. Tetlock has received awards from scientific societies and foundations, including the American Psychological Association, American Political Science Association, American Association for the Advancement of Science, International Society of Political Psychology, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences and the MacArthur, Sage, Grawemeyer, and Carnegie Foundations. Weve since come to rethink our approach to remote wildfires. Cognitive Biases in Path-Dependent Systems: Theory-Driven Reasoning About Plausible Pasts and Probable Futures in World Politics," in T. Gilovich, D.w. Griffin, and D. Kahneman (eds) Inferences, Heuristics and Biases: New Directions in Judgment Under Uncertainty. Tetlock and Mellers[10] see forecasting tournaments as a possible mechanism for helping intelligence agencies escape from blame-game (or accountability) ping-pong in which agencies find themselves whipsawed between clashing critiques that they were either too slow to issue warnings (false negatives such as 9/11) and too fast to issue warnings (false positives). How Can We Know? Hypotheses have as much of a place in our lives as they do in the lab. The more pessimistic tone of Expert Political Judgment (2005) and optimistic tone of Superforecasting (2015) reflects less a shift in Tetlocks views on the feasibility of forecasting than it does the different sources of data in the two projects. The mission was aborted and Luca barely escaped drowning in his spacesuit due to a mechanical failure that wasnt properly diagnosed. Forecasters with the biggest news media profiles were also especially bad. **Chapter 1: A Preacher, a Prosecutor, a Politician, and a Scientist ** . 1993-1995 Distinguished Professor, University of California, Berkeley. (2004). Tetlock first discusses arguments about whether the world is too complex for people to find the tools to understand political phenomena, let alone predict the future. When he tells you he has a hunch about how it is going to work, he is uncertain about it. This book fills that need. Grant argues these cognitive skills are essential in a turbulent and changing world. is a 2005 book by Philip E. Tetlock. The first is the "Preacher". Decouple your identity from your beliefs. You get to pick the reasons you find most compelling, and you come away with a real sense of ownership over them.. Questioning ourselves makes the world more unpredictable. He has written several non-fiction books at the intersection of psychology, political science and organizational behavior, including Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction; Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? ", This page was last edited on 18 February 2023, at 16:04. Tetlock first discusses arguments about whether the world is too complex for people to find the tools to understand political phenomena, let alone predict the future. He asked the man How can you hate me when you dont even know me? The men became friends and the KKK member eventually renounced his membership. Political Science Counterfactual Thought Experiments in World Politics: Logical, Methodological, and Psychological Perspectives Philip E. Tetlock Aaron Belkin Paperback Price: $69.95/54.00 ISBN: 9780691027913 Published: Sep 8, 1996 Copyright: 1997 Pages: 344 Size: 7.75 x 10 in. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Great listeners are more interested in making their audiences feel smart., Part III: Collective Rethinking Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? Tetlock, P. E., Visser, P., Singh, R., Polifroni, M., Elson, B., Mazzocco, P., &Rescober, P. (2007). Escalation of commitment is another (psychological factor). Its easy to notice when others need to change their opinions, but difficult for us to develop the same habit for ourselves. Home; Uncategorized; philip tetlock preacher, prosecutor, politician , traces the evolution of this project. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); document.getElementById( "ak_js_2" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Your email address will not be published. . [10][11], In a 1985 essay, Tetlock proposed that accountability is a key concept for linking the individual levels of analysis to the social-system levels of analysis. [17][18] Tetlock uses the phrase "intuitive politician research program" to describe this line of work. It was psychologist Philip Tetlock who demonstrated that, generally, the accuracy of our predictions is no better than chance, which means that flipping a coin is just as good as our best guess. [Adam Grant]: Two decades ago, I read a brilliant paper by Phil Tetlock, who introduced me to this idea of thinking like a preacher, a prosecutor or a politician. Opening story: Teacher Erin McCarthy assigned her 8th grade students a textbook from 1940 to see if they accepted the information without question or if they noticed any problematic anachronisms. ; Unmaking the West: What-if Scenarios that Rewrite World History; and Counterfactual Thought Experiments in World Politics. Prosecutors: We attack the ideas of others, often to win an argument. Organizational culture can either foster or inhibit rethinking. Tetlock P. and Mellers B. Tetlock, P. E. (2010). Rational models of human behavior aim to predict, possibly control, humans. He leads Marie-Helene to decide for herself to vaccinate her child. Exploring these questions reveals the limits of our knowledge. Learning from experience: How do experts think about possible pasts (historical counterfactuals) and probable futures (conditional forecasts)? He's soft-spoken, gestures frequently with his hands, and often talks in . Fuzzy thinking can never be proven wrong. Parker, G., Tetlock, P.E. Ernest Hemingway: You cant get away from yourself by moving from one place to another., Our identities are open systems, and so are our lives. The illusion of explanatory depth: We think we know more about things than we really do. Philip E. Tetlock University of Pennsylvania Abstract Research on judgment and choice has been dominated by functionalist assumptions that depict people as either intuitive scientists animated. Such research, he says, can "deepen our understanding of how to generate realistic . how long does sacher torte last. Author recommends twice a year personal checkups: opportunities to reassess your current pursuits, whether your current desires still align with your plans, and whether its time to pivot. (2006) Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Good outcomes arent always the result of good decisions. He dubbed these people superforecasters. Political psychology or politicized psychology: Is the road to scientific hell paved with good moral intentions? This is especially troubling for people like policymakers, whose decisions affect entire populations. By contrast, System 1 is largely a stranger to us. These findings were reported widely in the media and came to the attention of Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) inside the United States intelligence communitya fact that was partly responsible for the 2011 launch of a four-year geopolitical forecasting tournament that engaged tens of thousands of forecasters and drew over one million forecasts across roughly 500 questions of relevance to U.S. national security, broadly defined. For millennia, great thinkers and scholars have been working to understand the quirks of the human mind. We will stand on any soapbox to sell it with tremendous enthusiasm. David Dunning: The first rule of the Dunning-Kruger club is that you dont know youre a member of the Dunning-Kruger club.. Over the course of his career, Tetlock noticed that people spend a lot of time making judgments and decisions from three distinct 'mindsets': a preacher, a prosecutor, or a politician.. Optimism and. We constantly rationalize and justify our beliefs. Most of the other smokejumpers perished. Notify me of follow-up comments by email. But when the iPhone was released, Lazaridis failed to change his thinking to respond to a rapidly changing mobile device market. Think Again is structured into three main parts. He and his wife, Barbara Mellers, are the co-leaders of the Good Judgment Project, a multi-year forecasting study. Philip E. Tetlock is the Annenberg University Professor at the University of Pennsylvania and holds appointments in the psychology and political science departments and the Wharton School of Business. Process accountability evaluates projects, individuals and teams based on the decision-making process. How politicized is political psychology and is there anything we should do about it? Phil Tetlocks (political scientist) mindset model: Preachers, prosecutors, and politicians. Preachers: We pontificate and promote our ideas (sometimes to defend our ideas from attack). Express curiosity with questions like so you dont see any merit in this proposal at all?, Express their feelings about the process and their opponents feelings, e.g. The incident was a powerful reminder that we need to reevaluate our assumptions and determine how we arrived at them. Plan ahead to determine where they can find common ground. Politicians work well in government settings. Opening story: Daryl Davis is a musician and a Black man. Philip Tetlock's Edge Bio Page [46.50 minutes] INTRODUCTION by Daniel Kahneman Jason Zweig ofThe Wall Street Journalcalls it the most important book on decision making since Daniel KahnemansThinking, Fast and Slow, which, in the area of behavioral economics, is very high praise indeed. Professor Tetlock, who's based at the University of Pennsylvania, famously did a 20-year study of political predictions involving more than 280 experts, and found that on balance their rate of . Tetlock, P.E., &Lebow, R.N. [1] We can embrace them when theyre within their domains. Remember: real-life scientists can easily fall into preacher, prosecutor, politician modes too. [43][44][45][46][47] Hypothetical society studies make it possible for social scientists to disentangle these otherwise hopelessly confounded influences on public policy preferences. Philip E. Tetlock (born 1954) is a Canadian-American political science writer, and is currently the Annenberg University Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, where he is cross-appointed at the Wharton School and the School of Arts and Sciences. Tetlock is a psychology professor and researcher who is fascinated by decision-making processes and the attributes required for good judgment. Pros: Important topic well worth pondering. Dont try to politic a prosecutor, and be very careful if prosecuting a popular politician. We base our decisions on forecasts, so these findings call into question the accuracy of our decision-making. How can organization structure incentives and accountability procedures to check common cognitive biases such as belief perseverance and over-confidence? Be confident in your ability to learn more than in your knowledge (which is malleable). The three modes (and a quick explanation of each) are: Preacher - we hold a fundamentally inarguable idea that we will passionately express, protecting our ideals as sacred Prosecutor - we will pick apart the logic of the opposition's idea to prove our own point, marshaling the flaws in others