The Bias of Veterans

A while back during a discussion with a friend, I told him that I thought newcomers could sometimes do better than experts.  He laughed at the notion.  "The experts are the experts for a reason!"  No way someone entering a field could possibly know more or see a situation with more clarity than someone who had "been there; done that" for a long time.

Yesterday, however, I read this column from the Atlantic:  "The Bias of Veteran Journalists."

But for all their expertise, the pundits' predictions turned out to be correct less than 33% of the time. Which meant, as Lehrer puts it, that a "dart-throwing chimp" would have had a higher rate of success. Tetlock also found that the least accurate predictions were made by the most famous experts in the group. 

Why was that? According to Lehrer,

"The central error diagnosed by Tetlock was the sin of certainty, which led the 'experts' to impose a top-down solution on their decision-making processes ... When pundits were convinced that they were right, they ignored any brain areas that implied they might be wrong."

Tetlock himself, Lehrer says, concluded that "The dominant danger [for pundits] remains hubris, the vice of closed-mindedness, of dismissing dissonant possibilities too quickly."

 

I do not believe that there is anything inherently more "biased" or wrong with veteran journalists than veteran anyone else.  And - if you read the article above, you should not think that by default, as they gain experience, journalists - or anyone else for that matter, becomes biased and ineffective.

 

What I do think that this highlights, however, is that all of us, irrespective of our field, should work diligently to keep open minds. Don't assume that because you've seen something 83 times, that the 84th time is going to be identical to all the earlier occurrences.  Don't assume that all similar events can't diverge starkly from one another.

 

What my friend did not realize is this.  Sometimes expertise blinds us to seeing the world with a fresh viewpoint.  We can become lazy, using assumptions that can often aid us, but at times can also cause us to be unaware of what is really occurring.  Newcomers, without the bank of experience, then may see more readily what is actually going on because they are unable to assume.  The bottom line?  Lots of skepticism and continually challenging and re-examining your own beliefs is almost always wise.

Comments

[Dave Memphis MOJO]

I guess the same thing could be true of bridge. A good player is declarer and thinks: "I've seen this hand before. I know what to do." In the process, he or she overlooks a better way.

[Peg]

I think it can be true of almost any field, Dave. The veteran can think that he knows what to do, because he's thinks he's seen the same thing before. But - because of that, he misses something that is new.

Yep - in bridge, too - and I think that many of us who've been playing a long time have had it happen when we fall back on "auto-pilot." I know that I have, to my regret!