tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post5703437480057946384..comments2024-03-25T11:49:21.281-07:00Comments on The Splintered Mind: How Everyone Might Reasonably Believe They Are Much Better Than AverageEric Schwitzgebelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11541402189204286449noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-83969325959093462342017-07-30T05:12:45.353-07:002017-07-30T05:12:45.353-07:00Another rational explanation in some cases: they a...Another rational explanation in some cases: they are using a metric in which the distribution is skewed. There`s an old joke about having more than the average number of legs... because amputations are more common than extra limbs, that average is just under two.<br /><br />Now, "average" is not a technical word in statistics. It can mean any of several measures of location - mean, median, mode, or others - and is used casually to mean some conflation of the three. The leg joke is, perhaps, funnier because "mode" colors our interpretation in some ways. For driving skill, which doesn't have a canonical numerical measure, "mean" is strictly meaningless. Nevertheless, I think we do expect the undefined "average" to have the property that everybody's individual behavior affects it - even though this is untrue for median or mode.<br /><br /> While there are some drivers who have taken special training (bodyguards, police, race drivers), when they are driving their private cars on the highway this normally doesn't show. To the bystander, all good drivers resemble each other: the visibly bad driver is the one on the stretcher, or the jerk who cut you off. So, if you look around you, you see a few visibly worse drivers and nobody who is visibly better: good driving is generally unremarkable. This, I'd argue, makes it reasonable (in the absence of data that you cannot get) to assess "average" driving skill as a little worse than your own. <br /><br />Possibly it's a silly calculation to do, under the circumstances. But the experimenter did prompt these subjects to do it (another can of worms.)Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00336959529844990061noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-62918337468657546822017-07-28T19:05:21.414-07:002017-07-28T19:05:21.414-07:00I doubt people's behavior is driven by ethics....I doubt people's behavior is driven by ethics. Pretty sure they just rationalize after the fact, sometimes before, and you can rationalize everything.Marco Devillershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16403899539858486372noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-92172009864460547852017-07-27T15:54:18.339-07:002017-07-27T15:54:18.339-07:00Given that people normally spend the bulk of their...Given that people normally spend the bulk of their energy trying to show themselves as better than others, it is no mystery that they think they are. In fact to have self awareness is to think one is better than others. To be aware of the self, one has to see one's self as different. This difference is valuative. A synonym for different is better.Bird loverhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14900965890325148326noreply@blogger.com