tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/hubris-8120/articlesHubris – The Conversation2023-05-08T12:19:14Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1955272023-05-08T12:19:14Z2023-05-08T12:19:14ZDebunking the Dunning-Kruger effect – the least skilled people know how much they don’t know, but everyone thinks they are better than average<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524681/original/file-20230505-17-7okuda.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=535%2C93%2C4626%2C3682&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">David Dunning and Justin Kruger tested psychology students to see whether the least skilled were also the most unaware.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/electrotherapy-royalty-free-image/468877597?phrase=confused+test&adppopup=true">Rich Vintage/E+ via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>John Cleese, the British comedian, once <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvVPdyYeaQU">summed up the idea of the Dunning–Kruger effect</a> as, “If you are really, really stupid, then it’s impossible for you to know you are really, really stupid.” A quick search of the news brings up dozens of headlines connecting the Dunning–Kruger effect to everything from <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/markmurphy/2017/01/24/the-dunning-kruger-effect-shows-why-some-people-think-theyre-great-even-when-their-work-is-terrible/">work</a> to <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/commentary/2023/04/27/steve-cuno-dunning-kruger-effect/">empathy</a> and even to why <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/mind-in-the-machine/201808/the-dunning-kruger-effect-may-help-explain-trumps-support">Donald Trump was elected president</a>.</p>
<p>As a math professor who <a href="https://www.bowdoin.edu/profiles/faculty/egaze/">teaches students to use data</a> to make informed decisions, I am familiar with common mistakes people make when dealing with numbers. The Dunning-Kruger effect is the idea that the least skilled people <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.77.6.1121">overestimate their abilities</a> more than anyone else. This sounds convincing on the surface and makes for excellent comedy. But my colleagues and I suggest that the mathematical approach used to show this effect <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.5038/1936-4660.9.1.4">may be incorrect</a>.</p>
<h2>What Dunning and Kruger showed</h2>
<p>In the 1990s, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=d5TrVQMAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">David Dunning</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ZU-_cC0AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Justin Kruger</a> were professors of psychology at Cornell University and wanted to test whether <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.77.6.1121">incompetent people were unaware of their incompetence</a>.</p>
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<p>To test this, they gave 45 undergraduate students a 20-question logic test and then asked them to rate their own performance in two different ways.</p>
<p>First, Dunning and Kruger asked the students to estimate how many questions they got correct – a fairly straightforward assessment. Then, Dunning and Kruger asked the students to estimate how they did compared with the other students who took the test. This type of self-assessment requires students to make guesses about how others performed and is subject to a common cognitive mistake – most people consider themselves better than average.</p>
<p>Research shows that 93% of Americans think they are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/0001-6918(81)90005-6">better drivers than average</a>, 90% of teachers think they are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/he.36919771703">more skilled than their peers</a>, and this overestimation is pervasive across many skills – including logic tests. But it is mathematically impossible for most people to be better than average at a certain task.</p>
<p>After giving students the logic test, Dunning and Kruger divided them into four groups based on their scores. The lowest-scoring quarter of the students got, on average, 10 of the 20 questions correct. In comparison, the top-scoring quarter of students got an average of 17 questions correct. Both groups estimated they got about 14 correct. This is not terrible self-assessment by either group. The least skilled overestimated their scores by around 20 percentage points, while the top performers underestimated their scores by roughly 15 points.</p>
<p>The results appear more striking when looking at how students rated themselves against their peers, and here is where the better-than-average effect is on full display. The lowest-scoring students estimated that they did better than 62% of the test-takers, while the highest-scoring students thought they scored better than 68%.</p>
<p>By definition, being in the bottom 25% means that, at best, you will score better than 25% of people and, on average, better than just 12.5%. Estimating you did better than 62% of your peers, while only scoring better than 12.5% of them, gives a whopping 49.5 percentage-point overestimation. </p>
<p>The measure of how students compared themselves to others, rather than to their actual scores, is where the Dunning–Kruger effect arose. It grossly exaggerates the overestimation of the bottom 25% and seems to show, as Dunning and Kruger titled their paper, that the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.77.6.1121">least skilled students were “unskilled and unaware.”</a> </p>
<p>Using the protocol laid out by Dunning and Kruger, many researchers since have “confirmed” this effect in their <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2007.05.002">own fields of study</a>, leading to the sense that the Dunning–Kruger effect is intrinsic to how human brains work. For everyday people, the Dunning-Kruger effect seems true because the overly arrogant fool is a familiar and annoying stereotype.</p>
<h2>Debunking the Dunning-Kruger effect</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524683/original/file-20230505-17-zm461w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A hand filling out a test sheet." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524683/original/file-20230505-17-zm461w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524683/original/file-20230505-17-zm461w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524683/original/file-20230505-17-zm461w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524683/original/file-20230505-17-zm461w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524683/original/file-20230505-17-zm461w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524683/original/file-20230505-17-zm461w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524683/original/file-20230505-17-zm461w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">When students are asked to rate their ability objectively, they do much better than when they compare themselves with their peers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/exam-test-royalty-free-image/688307046?phrase=school%2Btest">greenwatermelon/iStock via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There are three reasons Dunning and Kruger’s analysis is misleading. </p>
<p>The worst test-takers would also overestimate their performance the most because they are simply the furthest from getting a perfect score. Additionally, the least skilled people, like most people, assume they are better than average. Finally, the lowest scorers aren’t markedly worse at estimating their objective performance.</p>
<p>To establish the Dunning-Kruger effect is an artifact of research design, not human thinking, my colleagues and I showed it can be produced <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.5038/1936-4660.9.1.4">using randomly generated data</a>. </p>
<p>First, we created 1,154 fictional people and randomly assigned them both a test score and a self-assessment ranking compared with their peers.</p>
<p>Then, just as Dunning and Kruger did, we divided these fake people into quarters based on their test scores. Because the self-assessment rankings were also randomly assigned a score from 1 to 100, each quarter will revert to the mean of 50. By definition, the bottom quarter will outperform only 12.5% of participants on average, but from the random assignment of self-assessment scores they will consider themselves better than 50% of test-takers. This gives an <a href="https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/critical-thinking/dunning-kruger-effect-probably-not-real">overestimation of 37.5 percentage points</a> without any humans involved.</p>
<p>To prove the last point – that the least skilled can adequately judge their own skill – required a different approach. </p>
<p>My colleague Ed Nuhfer and his team gave students a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1128/jmbe.v17i1.1036">25-question scientific literacy test</a>. After answering each question, the students would rate their own performance on each question as either “nailed it,” “not sure” or “no idea.”</p>
<p>Working with Nuhfer, we found that unskilled students are <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.5038/1936-4660.10.1.4">pretty good at estimating their own competence</a>. In this study of unskilled students who scored in the bottom quarter, only 16.5% significantly overestimated their abilities. And, it turns out, 3.9% significantly underestimated their score. That means nearly 80% of unskilled students were fairly good at estimating their real ability – a far cry from the idea put forth by Dunning and Kruger that the unskilled consistently overestimate their skills.</p>
<h2>Dunning–Kruger today</h2>
<p>The original paper by Dunning and Kruger starts with the quote: “It is one of the essential features of incompetence that the person so inflicted is incapable of knowing that they are incompetent.” This idea has spread far and wide through both scientific literature and pop culture alike. But according to the work of my colleagues and me, the reality is that very few people are truly unskilled and unaware.</p>
<p>The Dunning and Kruger experiment did find a real effect – most people think they are better than average. But according to my team’s work, that is all Dunning and Kruger showed. The reality is that people have an innate ability to gauge their competence and knowledge. To <a href="https://3starlearningexperiences.wordpress.com/2016/09/06/de-dunning-kruger-effect-a-poisonous-paradox/">claim otherwise</a> suggests, incorrectly, that much of the population is hopelessly ignorant.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195527/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Eric C. Gaze does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The idea that the least skilled are the most unaware of their incompetency is pervasive in science and pop culture. But a new analysis of the data shows that the Dunning-Kruger effect may not be true.Eric C. Gaze, Senior Lecturer of Mathematics, Bowdoin CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1474282020-10-07T15:22:27Z2020-10-07T15:22:27Z‘What goes around comes around,’ or what Greek mythology says about Donald Trump<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361983/original/file-20201006-20-z5nxum.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=46%2C120%2C6095%2C4001&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Donald Trump's helicopter landing at the White House, Oct. 5, as he returns from being hospitalized at Walter Reed.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/oct-6-2020-the-marine-one-carrying-u-s-president-donald-news-photo/1228924322?adppopup=true">Liu Jie/Xinhua via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s hard to process the news of the <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/latest-updates-trump-covid-19-results/2020/10/03/919898777/timeline-what-we-know-of-president-trumps-covid-19-diagnosis">president’s positive COVID-19 diagnosis</a> without having recourse to some kind of mythological system, some larger frame of reference. </p>
<p>Karma, wrote one journalist, and then reproached himself for the ungenerous thought. Or perhaps it was simple irony on display when, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-seemed-to-defy-the-laws-of-science-and-disease-then-the-coronavirus-caught-up-with-him/2020/10/02/5b4c5232-04bf-11eb-897d-3a6201d6643f_story.html">Washington Post</a> reporters wrote, “President Trump contracted the novel coronavirus after months in which he and people around him…avoided taking basic steps to prevent the virus’s spread.”</p>
<p>All these reactions make sense. If there’s one thing we know about a virus that’s still mysterious in many ways, it’s that this coronavirus is expert at going around. </p>
<p>And as a classics scholar, I can assure you: What goes around comes around. Greek mythology provides insight to help us understand today’s chaos.</p>
<h2>Failure to see until too late</h2>
<p>Many years ago, my high school English teachers put a lot of stress on terms like foreshadowing, climax and denouement. All these words marked points along a steep curve of the development of a story: rising action, turning point, falling action. </p>
<p>There was also a lot of emphasis, as we discussed plots, on a term I then found harder to understand: pride. Pride: arrogance; an exaggerated sense of self-worth. Pride tended to be followed by catastrophe – that falling action again. </p>
<p>As a high school student, I tended to confuse pride with vanity, with narcissistic preening; the tragic penalty of vanity seemed exaggeratedly severe. </p>
<p>What does “pride” really mean? <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/hubris">The Greek word it translates is hubris</a>, and pride doesn’t quite cover the range of the meaning of hubris. Vanity may well be part of hubris, but a more crucial sense of the word is terrible judgment, gross overconfidence, blindness, obtuseness, a failure to see what is staring you in the face – a failure to see it until it’s too late. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361985/original/file-20201006-18-1oay2kp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Trump stands, maskless, on the Truman Balcony" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361985/original/file-20201006-18-1oay2kp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361985/original/file-20201006-18-1oay2kp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361985/original/file-20201006-18-1oay2kp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361985/original/file-20201006-18-1oay2kp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361985/original/file-20201006-18-1oay2kp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361985/original/file-20201006-18-1oay2kp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361985/original/file-20201006-18-1oay2kp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Trump stands, maskless, on the Truman Balcony after returning to the White House.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-donald-trump-stands-on-the-truman-balcony-after-news-photo/1278690383?adppopup=true">Win McNamee/Getty Images)</a></span>
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<h2>Retribution and rashness</h2>
<p>I don’t recall my teachers mentioning <a href="https://www.greekmythology.com/Other_Gods/Nemesis/nemesis.html">nemesis</a> or <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Ate">até</a>, forces or principles that are closely associated with hubris in Greek mythology. </p>
<p>Nemesis is more often personified, and hence capitalized, than até. She’s a goddess of retribution, and she can follow acts of hubris with the certainty of a law of gravity – except that there may be a considerable time lag, as if one dropped a plate and it took a generation for it to break. That concept likewise <a href="https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Jeremiah-31-29/">appears in the Bible’s book of Ezekiel</a>, which says “The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the teeth of the children shall be set on edge.” </p>
<p>Até is a more unpredictable figure, not necessarily personified – classics scholar E.R. Dodds in “<a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520242302/the-greeks-and-the-irrational">The Greeks and the Irrational</a>” tentatively defines até as “a sort of guilty rashness.” </p>
<p>On the other hand, até can be unforgettably personified, as when <a href="http://shakespeare.mit.edu/julius_caesar/full.html">Mark Antony addresses the body of Caesar and predicts civil war</a> in Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar:” </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“And Caesar’s spirit ranging for revenge,<br>
With Até by his side, come hot from hell,<br>
Shall in these confines, with a monarch’s voice,<br>
Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war…”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Goddess or not, até, like nemesis, can be thought of as a kind of mechanism whereby one evil is succeeded by another. There’s a chain reaction, a cause and result. Nemesis seems cooler, more targeted and precise; até lets all hell break loose, and also is the hell that breaks loose. Categories blur in the chaos.</p>
<h2>‘He himself is the polluter’</h2>
<p>When I studied and taught Sophocles’ tragedy “<a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Oedipus-Rex-play-by-Sophocles">Oedipus the King</a>,” the stress was on hubris, irony, blindness. What wasn’t emphasized is that the <a href="https://theconversation.com/plagues-follow-bad-leadership-in-ancient-greek-tales-133139">play was written during and is set in the midst of a plague</a>. </p>
<p>The citizens of Thebes, in the tragedy’s opening scene, implore their wise and resourceful ruler Oedipus to save them from this disastrous illness. Oedipus, moved by their plight and confident in his own capability, promises to do exactly that. His effort to hunt down the criminal whose unpunished sin is polluting the city and causing the plague leads to Oedipus’s own exposure as the source of that pollution. </p>
<p>But he persists in his hunt for the truth – even though the truth, as every student learns, turns out to be that he himself is the polluter whom he seeks. Trump, like Oedipus, is the source of the pollution - or at the very least, a vector, a spreader, an enabler. Unlike Oedipus, the president has actively discouraged the hunt for the truth.</p>
<p>The final words of the tragedy are addressed by the chorus to the citizens of Thebes. Presumably the plague will be routed; the city has indeed been cleansed. In contrast, the citizens of our country keep on dying. The president removes his mask and proclaims his triumph.</p>
<p><a href="http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/poetics.1.1.html">Aristotle recommends in his “Poetics”</a> that in the best tragedies, the pivot or reversal – called “peripeteia” – from the height of success to disaster is accompanied by some kind of knowledge – anagnorisis, or recognition. “Pathei mathos,” sings the chorus in <a href="http://classics.mit.edu/Aeschylus/agamemnon.html">Aeschylus’s tragedy “Agamemnon”</a>: wisdom comes through suffering. </p>
<figure>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">A scene from the Theater of War’s production of ‘Oedipus Rex’</span></figcaption>
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<p>The simultaneity of Oedipus’s enlightenment and his catastrophe is one of the factors that made Aristotle so admire this elegantly plotted play. </p>
<p>The untranslatable, chaotic force of até plays out in the cycle of reversal followed by recognition; arrogance followed by retribution. What are we supposed to think?</p>
<p>Whether we rejoice or mourn, whether we’re elated or fearful, and whatever happens in the weeks and months to come, this news – that the president has COVID-19 – arrives with a freight of predictability: This particular infection seems, in retrospect, if not inevitable then at least overwhelmingly likely. </p>
<p>Hubris: not seeing what’s in front of your nose. <a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/72565/all-the-presidents-lawsuits-fraud-defamation-and-the-westfall-act-jean-carroll-mary-trump/">Even as lawsuits</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/17/books/trump-books-simon-schuster-bolton-mary-trump.html">tell-all books</a> have piled up, Trump has always seemed triumphantly immune. Not any more.</p>
<h2>Tragedy’s lesson</h2>
<p>What happens next? Unlike Oedipus, Trump has denied that there was ever a dangerous illness in the city – although <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/bob-woodward-rage-book-trump/2020/09/09/0368fe3c-efd2-11ea-b4bc-3a2098fc73d4_story.html">Bob Woodward’s book, “Rage”</a> makes clear that he knew there was. Unlike Oedipus, he has refused his people’s pleas for help.</p>
<p>What does Oedipus learn in the course of the drama? Quite a lot. He may blame the gods or fate for his plight, but he also takes responsibility for what has happened.</p>
<p>[<em>The Conversation’s newsletter explains what’s going on with the coronavirus pandemic. <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=coronavirus-going-on">Subscribe now</a>.</em>]</p>
<p>What will Covid – his own personal, irrefutable experience of COVID-19 – teach Trump? Humility? Compassion? Respect for expert advice? The existence of Nemesis? His own diagnosis of hubris, with a measure of até thrown in? </p>
<p>The answer is all too clear. Released from the hospital, <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1313186529058136070">Trump tweeted</a>: “Don’t be afraid of Covid. Don’t let it dominate your life!” He also said “Maybe I’m immune” and took off his mask when returning to the White House.</p>
<p>Tragedy, I tell my students, doesn’t teach a lesson or preach a moral. It offers a vision. Not: don’t be arrogant, prideful, hubristic. Rather: Men of Thebes, look upon Oedipus.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/147428/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rachel Hadas does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A classics scholar and poet turns to Greek mythology, especially the story of Oedipus the King, to explain the drama – or perhaps tragedy – that is taking place in the highest office in the land.Rachel Hadas, Professor of English, Rutgers University - NewarkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1151762019-04-25T09:56:00Z2019-04-25T09:56:00ZThree lessons for leadership from the Brexit mess<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270787/original/file-20190424-121254-jmay7x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">David Cameron did not expect to lose the Brexit referendum.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Diana Vucane / Shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Remember David Cameron? He’s the prime minister who gambled his career – and the stability of his country – on the UK’s Brexit referendum. He unsuccessfully bet his job that he could persuade the UK to remain in the EU. Cameron has surely reflected long and hard on his role in the wave of uncertainty that has since engulfed the UK. His successor, Theresa May, is now struggling to lead the country through the Brexit process. </p>
<p>Their mistakes offer a number of lessons for would-be leaders. Not just political ones, but business leaders too. They can be summed up, thus: ignore your people at your peril. Consumed with hubris, Cameron assumed that the British electorate would vote in favour of remaining. He downplayed the role of emotions in a crucial vote and he took one chance after another while in power. May’s handling of Brexit has also been <a href="https://theconversation.com/theresa-mays-handling-of-brexit-is-a-classic-case-of-bad-leadership-108646">riddled with miscalculation</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270781/original/file-20190424-121258-11t5bm0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270781/original/file-20190424-121258-11t5bm0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=573&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270781/original/file-20190424-121258-11t5bm0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=573&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270781/original/file-20190424-121258-11t5bm0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=573&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270781/original/file-20190424-121258-11t5bm0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=720&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270781/original/file-20190424-121258-11t5bm0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=720&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270781/original/file-20190424-121258-11t5bm0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=720&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">David Cameron.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Drop of Light / Shutterstock.com</span></span>
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<p>In May 2016, we started providing advisory to businesses on Brexit, and worked closely with more than 150 executives. Among them, some have thrived since the fateful June 23 vote. Despite the turmoil and the struggles of the political elites, we found that economic decision makers now realise three powerful and poignant lessons of Brexit leadership.</p>
<h2>1. Spend more time with customers</h2>
<p>London’s political elite invested in multiple pollsters, experts and statisticians to predict the outcome of the Brexit referendum. The day before Brits took to the ballot box, many polls prophesied a <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/eu-referendum-poll-brexit-remain-vote-leave-live-latest-who-will-win-results-populus-a7097261.html">ten-point victory for the Remain campaign</a>. Mastermind of the Leave campaign, Dominic Cummings, on the other hand, simply went to the pub and spoke to everyday voters. Dozens of conversations later, he had the understanding and messaging that would see Vote Leave triumphant.</p>
<p>Majorities can be silent and invisible – Donald Trump’s presidential win in 2016 <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/11/03/pious-progressives-have-created-a-spiral-of-silence-which-could/">was also unexpected by many polls</a>. Voter preferences, like customer preferences, are often difficult to define. They struggle to articulate their real interests and, without clear information, emotional responses prevail. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0777TZ2JZ/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1">Two separate studies</a> of 1,000 retail, tech, financial services and healthcare leaders around the globe confirm the value of customer research in understanding the business. This means that after absorbing the analytics, leaders still have to make the key judgement calls and not take the numbers completely at face value. They need to leave the office and gather the real, on-the-ground customer research to get a finer grained understanding of things.</p>
<h2>2. End complacency before it kills you</h2>
<p>David Cameron’s decision to call the Brexit referendum seemed more like an embarrassed answer to a child’s dare than a planned, strategic, historical step forward. The British government was arrogant and complacent, and as one consultant for the government put it to us: “Ministers really believed people would do everything their prime minister told them to.” From a mix of hubris and naivety, Cameron made strong assumptions about his people.</p>
<p>Instead, Brexiters used the referendum as a chance to “take control”. This was their campaign slogan and the referendum gave them space and an audience to express a voice of divergence. </p>
<p>Today, the best leaders are those that keep a finger on the pulse of the workforce. Cameron should have predicted that the consequence of giving the Brexiters legitimacy would be that he could lose control of his party. This would have ultimately helped him plan accordingly.</p>
<h2>3. Promote transparency</h2>
<p>Britain is in complete disarray over the course of Brexit. The country’s leaders seem to be grabbing for words and ideas ad hoc, with no concrete plan in place, and the original deadline for departing the EU has long gone. “It’s fair to say that Brexit has been characterised by panic,” business journalist and neuroscientist, Kirsten Levermore told us.</p>
<p>Without question, negotiating the Brexit deal is one of the greatest challenges a leader could imagine. Differences of opinion run deep and the political balance can shift at any moment, jeopardising months of effort. But, like all boards and business leaders facing great change, politicians must contain the panic of their peers and people, or risk figurative – or even literal – riots on the streets. </p>
<p>But Levermore added: “Silence is deafening – it is saying that leaders don’t know what is going on, or what they are going to do about it. It can be difficult for leaders to know what and how much to share in times of crisis … but the really important thing is that they say something to fill the void.” </p>
<p>In the context of Brexit, the public on both sides of the debate has been looking at their leaders with increasing defiance – while the government seems to lack a clear direction, and keeps its cards close to its chest, better communication on the path forward would help unite opinion around a common solution rather than division.</p>
<h2>A long road ahead</h2>
<p>The UK government still seems a long way away from a clear solution to Brexit. But there is much to learn from the current struggles, from the fundamental mistake of David Cameron to assume he would win the referendum and hold one without a proper plan in place, to the struggles of his successor Theresa May when it comes to finding a platform of agreement with her own members of parliament.</p>
<p>The Brexit negotiations have become a political game rather than an exercise of democracy. Business leaders, like political ones, when facing such a divisive situation, should consider going back to the drawing board – listening, taking stock and feeding back to their followers to keep them on board.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/115176/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>They can be summed up, thus: ignore your people at your peril.Benjamin Laker, Professor of Leadership, Henley Business School, University of ReadingThomas Roulet, Senior Lecturer in Organisation Theory and Fellow in Sociology & Management, University of CambridgeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1073902019-01-08T11:26:12Z2019-01-08T11:26:12ZFour common mistakes that can ruin your chances in a job interview<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251014/original/file-20181217-185237-18viaxl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/business-people-waiting-job-interview-447401278?src=hkSBfH5iZafsCRiZpUefrw-1-93">shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>If you make it to the job interview stage of an application process, the prospect of a new job is very much in sight. Make a good impression and you are likely to get the opportunity you want. </p>
<p>But imagine you get to the interview and, despite being highly qualified and motivated, you end up not getting the job offer. In spite of your best efforts to made a good impression, the chances are you made one of these four common errors: a failure of perspective taking, narcissism, hubris and humble bragging. </p>
<p>My <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/spc3.12321">research</a> suggests that these are four of the main reasons why people fail to make a good impression in high-stakes situations – which is when it really matters.</p>
<p>To avoid the four common errors when trying to make a positive impression, let’s consider them one by one to understand why they are unsuccessful. </p>
<h2>1. Lack of perspective taking</h2>
<p>First, failed perspective taking can lead interviewees to mispredict the interviewer’s reactions. For example, it’s common to mention one’s successes in a job interview, and there’s of course nothing wrong with doing that. But interviewees might underestimate the importance of how they talk about their success. </p>
<p>My <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01973533.2018.1500289">research shows</a> that people tend to explain their success by emphasising their own talent and abilities, because they think that interviewers will deem them competent when doing so. In these cases, interviewees err because they fail to put themselves in the shoes of the interviewer. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251287/original/file-20181218-27755-15mvu62.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251287/original/file-20181218-27755-15mvu62.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251287/original/file-20181218-27755-15mvu62.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251287/original/file-20181218-27755-15mvu62.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251287/original/file-20181218-27755-15mvu62.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251287/original/file-20181218-27755-15mvu62.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251287/original/file-20181218-27755-15mvu62.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">It’s important to be likeable as well as competent.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/nice-meet-you-portrait-cheerful-young-783900115">shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>When adopting the interviewer’s perspective, it becomes clear that interviewers not only care about hiring a competent employee, but also about having a likeable employee. To ensure appearing likeable – as well as competent – interviewees should adopt a different strategy. Instead of talking about their talent and ability, they should focus instead on mentioning the hard work and effort that caused the success. The interviewer will then feel that the interviewee is not only competent but also relatable and likeable, which will increase the chances of getting hired.</p>
<h2>2. Narcissism</h2>
<p>When hearing the word “narcissist”, one might think of people who are extremely vain and self-possessed. But actually all of us can have a little bit of that trait in us. Narcissism can manifest in a sense of superiority toward interviewers, leading to arrogant and off-putting behaviour. </p>
<p>It is therefore important to suppress the tiny narcissist inside all of us when in a job interview. Keep in mind that the interviewer is looking for a confident employee, not for someone who believes they are superior to everyone else, including the interviewer.</p>
<h2>3. Hubris</h2>
<p>Interviewees can hurt their chances of nailing an interview by showing hubris. This often comes out in comparing oneself to others in a favourable way. For example, an interviewee might say that they were the best sales manager in their previous job or better at something than their former colleagues. </p>
<p>Even if that claim is true and conveys competence, it would probably diminish the chances of getting the job. This happens because when interviewees explicitly compare themselves to others, the interviewer might feel personally attacked by fearing that the interviewee also compares themself to the interviewer. Such a fear would undermine the interviewer’s desire to hire the interviewee.</p>
<h2>4. The humble brag</h2>
<p>Humble bragging is when you boast about yourself in a way that is thinly disguised as a gripe or self-deprecation. For example, in response to the classic question, “What are your weaknesses?” An interviewee might say: “In my current job, I struggle with being really busy because everyone is always coming to me for advice.” Or, “I’m too much of a perfectionist.”</p>
<p>But this strategy backfires. The interviewer can usually see through this tactic. Not only does the interviewee seem conceited for the bragging, but they also seem dishonest for the attempt to disguise the bragging. Therefore, this strategy is very unlikely to be successful.</p>
<p>Taken together, as an interviewee you should remember that it’s important to not only impress the interviewer but also to establish a relationship with them. To achieve this, it’s helpful to a) look at yourself from the interviewer’s eyes and remember they are looking for a likeable employee, b) avoid seeming superior, c) avoid comparisons to others, and d) be sincere about your strengths and weaknesses. </p>
<p>By sidestepping these common traps when trying to make a good impression, the next interviewer should have no trouble seeing you as the competent, motivated, and likeable potential employee that you are.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/107390/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Janina Steinmetz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>If you make it to the interview stage but don’t get a job offer, chances are you made one of four common errors.Janina Steinmetz, Senior Lecturer in Marketing, Cass Business School, City, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1067322018-11-13T14:52:58Z2018-11-13T14:52:58ZBook on Steinhoff’s demise shows danger of ‘big men’ business leaders<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245272/original/file-20181113-194513-10hvmnj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Steinhoff CEO Markus Jooste was an excessively dominant, forceful and feared boss. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://www.sowetanlive.co.za/business/2017-12-07-steinhoff-share-price-continues-to-fall/">collapse</a> of Steinhoff International, the multi-billion dollar global business group, has been rightly described as the biggest corporate scandal in South African history. </p>
<p>The company’s history, and its subsequent evolution and demise, are skillfully told in a <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Steinhoff-inside-biggest-corporate-crash-ebook/dp/B07FT9KPG7">new book</a> <em>Steinhoff: Inside SA’s Biggest Corporate Crash</em>, by former journalist James-Brent Styan. It is the story of a bold vision and ambition, entrepreneurial grit and guile, continuous innovation, relentless risk-taking, corporate hubris, and friendship betrayals.</p>
<p>The extraordinary way in which Steinhoff grew from being a modest firm with a footprint only in Germany and South Africa to becoming a multinational behemoth straddling sectors such as furniture manufacturing, retail, logistics, consumer finance, building material, wood and vehicles with a global presence, is impressive.</p>
<p>In its pursuit of growth, Steinhoff employed a two-pronged strategy. The first focused on creating a low-cost manufacturing base. This enabled the business to supply products at cheap prices to its target market of lower-to-middle income groups. </p>
<p>The second pillar consisted of an aggressive acquisition of companies. A great deal of the acquisitions took place in European countries such as Germany, Poland and France but also extended to Australia, New Zealand, Britain and the US.</p>
<p>The acquisitions were costly and the conglomerate paid above the market value for the shares. The rapid spate of takeovers saw the group expand to 12 000 stores across the world, employing 130 000 people. Ultimately, Steinhoff became a fully vertically integrated enterprise – it was involved in all the value chain links from sourcing raw materials, to manufacturing and finally to distribution and sale of products.</p>
<h2>Shaky foundations</h2>
<p>At the pinnacle of its success, the international business giant became the darling of investors, asset managers, analysts and financial journalists. They all feted its expansion into new ventures and countries. But, as it later turned out, its success was built on shaky foundations epitomised by unfettered greed as well as dodgy and unethical practices, including alleged accounting irregularities, tax evasion and lax corporate standards.</p>
<p>The day before the Steinhoff group’s precipitous crash, the corporation was worth R193bn. On the following day, its market value was decimated by a staggering R117bn. Among the victims of the financial carnage were financial South African services giants Coronation Fund, Foord Asset Management, Sanlam, Investec, Liberty, Old Mutual, Allan Gray, Discovery and the Nedgroup. </p>
<p>The biggest losers were key investor and Pepkor chairman Christo Wiese (R37bn) and the Public Investment Corporation (R14bn), which manages the Government Employees Pension Fund. Overnight, millions of South Africans had lost billions of rands in pension funds.</p>
<p>The book encompasses a diverse range of themes and proffers a number important business lessons. Some bear mentioning.</p>
<h2>Lessons</h2>
<p>The case of Markus Jooste, then Steinhoff CEO, shows that the cult of personality and “Big Man” syndrome is as ubiquitous in the corporate world as it is in politics. He comes across as an excessively dominant, forceful and feared boss. He brooks no dissent and only those subordinates who obsequiously defer to him benefit from his extensive patronage. To the detriment of the business, his leadership style fostered an institutional culture of uncritical subservience and self-censorship. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245069/original/file-20181112-83593-tkidn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245069/original/file-20181112-83593-tkidn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245069/original/file-20181112-83593-tkidn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245069/original/file-20181112-83593-tkidn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245069/original/file-20181112-83593-tkidn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1160&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245069/original/file-20181112-83593-tkidn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1160&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245069/original/file-20181112-83593-tkidn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1160&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p>A recurring question in the book is: Despite occasional red flags how could the analysts, investors, asset managers, directors and the Johannesburg Securities Exchange have been oblivious to the wrongdoing at Steinhoff? </p>
<p>Part of the problem was the dominant view that the company could never go wrong. As long as the share price kept rising, and the good news kept flowing, there was nothing to worry about. There were, of course, some skeptical and dissenting voices, but they were too few to upend the prevailing consensus. </p>
<p>The crucial lesson here is that the share price is not the only indicator of corporate performance; fundamental governance issues are equally, if not more, important.</p>
<p>As Steinhoff’s global expansion accelerated, its business model and structure became more complicated. Some market analysts have argued that the firm’s increasingly complex structure, coupled with the group’s continual acquisitions, made it nearly impossible to analyse its books and to do year-on-year comparisons.</p>
<p>Even so, there was a belief that as long as strong, charismatic and venerated business personalities such as Jooste and Wiese, Steinhoff’s chairman at the time, were at the helm the business was in safe hands. This trust in Jooste and Wiese, as well as in management and directors, proved to be misplaced. As Warren Buffett has wisely <a href="https://www.gurufocus.com/news/127046/rule-number-one-dont-invest-in-something-you-dont-understand-">counselled</a>, never invest in something you don’t trust.</p>
<p>The Steinhoff board of directors, long viewed as one of the strongest and most dependable, has come under fierce criticism for failing to exercise its fiduciary duty. Describing the board, one fund manager stated that it was
“ineffective, not independent and was overwhelmed by Jooste’s strong personality”. </p>
<p>Criticism has also been directed at Deloitte, the firm that audited the company’s statements for 20 years, for disregarding the irregularities and the danger signs preceding the crash. It is this milieu that prompted an analyst to describe what happened at Steinhoff in the book as follows:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It’s a buddy-buddy system, a bunch of people who know each other and have worked together for years. It strips them of their capacity to question things that don’t make sense. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Up there with the worst</h2>
<p>Styan must be commended for producing a cogently written and thoroughly researched book. In terms of its drama and catastrophic impact, the Steinhoff scandal is up there with the likes of Enron, Worldcom, Tyco, Freddie Mac, Bernie Madoff and other world infamous episodes of business malfeasance. As such, the book provides valuable insights and lessons that are universally applicable and comparable. It must be made compulsory reading in corporate boardrooms and business schools.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/106732/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mills Soko does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Steinhoff was the darling of investors, asset managers, analysts and financial journalists. But its success was built on shaky foundations.Mills Soko, Professor: International Business & Strategy, Wits Business School, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/792252017-06-12T14:45:59Z2017-06-12T14:45:59ZIs pride a vice or a virtue? A psychologist explains<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173321/original/file-20170612-10202-148rb7h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The body language of pride.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">vectorfusionart/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Greek philosopher Aristotle described pride as the “<a href="https://outre-monde.com/2010/12/07/aristotle-on-the-virtue-of-pride/">crown of the virtues</a>”. It’s after all an emotion we experience when we’ve achieved something great, or when someone close to us has. It usually has a recognisable physical expression – a slight smile, the head tilted back, the chest expanded, with arms raised or akimbo. Think Superman after he’s defeated a villain. </p>
<p>Yet pride often gets a bad rep. While it can help us feel dignified and aware of our self-worth – ensuring that others do not walk all over us – it can seemingly interfere with empathy and make us come across as arrogant and egocentric. Pride comes before a fall, goes the saying. It is also one of the seven deadly sins, sitting alongside terrible traits such as envy, greed and arrogance. </p>
<p>So would it be better if we didn’t feel pride at all? Let’s take a look at what modern psychologists think. </p>
<h2>Beware of hubris</h2>
<p>Much of the research in this area has focused on determining whether pride is good or bad for us. A solution has been to split it into two emotions: hubristic pride and authentic pride. Some researchers argue that hubristic pride is <a href="http://ubc-emotionlab.ca/wp-content/files_mf/pridefacets.pdf">what leads to states of arrogance and smugness</a>, while authentic pride is what promotes confidence and fulfilment. </p>
<p>However, others say that this splitting of prides may be too simplistic. In fact, some argue that <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23527507">hubristic pride doesn’t really qualify</a> as an emotion at all. It’s not that arrogant people are feeling a different emotion than non-arrogant people. The emotion of pride is present in both cases. Hubris is mainly about how someone communicates their pride to others. This is when pride might become problematic. </p>
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<p>According to this research, people who express their pride in a hubristic or arrogant manner are those who tend to score high on narcissism, and who are less conscientious about how they present themselves socially. Consider US president, Donald Trump, who is <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/trump-and-the-pathology-of-narcissism-w474896">often accused of narcissism</a>. Many people thought he came across as hubristic when hitting back against reports that his <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/01/21/trump_accuses_media_of_lying_about_inauguration_crowd_size_during_speech.html">inauguration drew significantly fewer people</a> than his predecessor Barack Obama’s. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, when Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the British Labour Party, said he was “very proud” of his party’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-uk-election-fails-to-produce-a-winner-heres-what-happens-now-79193">2017 general election results</a> it seemed more understandable. Corbyn dramatically <a href="https://theconversation.com/shock-labour-surge-gives-unions-a-chance-to-ramp-up-pressure-on-a-fragile-government-79067">outperformed expectations</a>, overcoming seemingly insurmountable hurdles. But to many people he comes across as a more humble individual. However there is no reason to assume he is experiencing pride to any less degree than Trump.</p>
<h2>Moral emotion?</h2>
<p>When you look at the causes and consequences of pride, it emerges that pride may be a core moral emotion. Moral emotions encourage pro-social behaviour and group harmony. But how could pride – an emotion that seems so self-focused – be considered a moral emotion? </p>
<p>In a <a href="https://www.rowmaninternational.com/book/the_moral_psychology_of_pride/3-156-796db39d-91b6-499e-ba0c-d487d0bb06bb">forthcoming review of the literature</a>, Jared Piazza and I found that pride is often elicited by actions that are considered socially praiseworthy. That is, we often feel proud about actions we think others will admire. For example, adults don’t tend to feel pride when they lace up their shoes in the morning, but a young child might if they think their parents will praise them for it. Pride therefore is quite socially oriented.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17439760.2013.830765">A study</a> conducted outside of the lab by Jeanne Nakamura obtained experiences of people feeling pride at work and at home. This research found that most situations that elicited high levels of pride were “social” in nature. That is, pride was experienced most strongly when others were around, such as family members or work clients. </p>
<p>Another study <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/52853b8ae4b0a6c35d3f8e9d/t/528d25fbe4b059766439b8ba/1384982011865/pride-and-perseverance-the-motivational-role-of-pride.pdf">demonstrated the social aspect of pride beautifully</a>. Participants were told that they had performed exceptionally well on a difficult task. Some of the participants were also praised for their performance (“great job!”). The participants that received this additional praise reported feeling more pride and tended to persevere longer in subsequent similar tasks. The study demonstrates that pride can motivate behaviours that are likely to bring us social praise. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173183/original/file-20170609-4785-5gikhk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173183/original/file-20170609-4785-5gikhk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173183/original/file-20170609-4785-5gikhk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173183/original/file-20170609-4785-5gikhk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173183/original/file-20170609-4785-5gikhk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173183/original/file-20170609-4785-5gikhk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173183/original/file-20170609-4785-5gikhk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Look – I did it all by myself.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/little-girl-learning-how-tie-her-125104283?src=toC22wSx0HwVMmUEUWUV-g-1-0">Ilike/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>That pride is experienced in response to achievements associated with social or moral value might encourage people to “stand their ground” to a greater extent than people who don’t experience pride about a topic. Of course, in such instances, such pride – accompanied by the <a href="http://faculty.washington.edu/jdb/articles/Brown%20and%20Marshall%20(2001)%20PSPB.pdf">increased self-esteem</a> and confidence associated with pride – might simply come across as stubbornness. </p>
<p>From an evolutionary perspective, the tendency to experience pride likely <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1754073909354627">benefited our ancestors in a number of ways</a>. First, by motivating people to achieve socially approved goals, pride can motivate us to contribute to society. By doing so, it can enhance the social status of the achiever – granting them greater influence over group resources and decision making. This can be especially effective depending on how we communicate that pride to others. For instance, raising one’s hands in the air after winning a sporting event might be considered appropriate, but raising one’s hands in the air after winning an argument with a romantic partner might be deemed as slightly less appropriate.</p>
<p>While pride can certainly lead to arrogant displays, this may be more about personality than the emotion of pride itself. Pride as an emotion seems to be quite functional and exist to encourage people to engage in socially valued behaviours more likely to bind people together than to separate and divide.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/79225/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Neil McLatchie does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Whether pride is good for you may depend on your personality.Neil McLatchie, Lecturer in Psychology, Lancaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/715482017-01-20T13:23:49Z2017-01-20T13:23:49ZHubris and the danger of leaders with extreme self-regard<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/153433/original/image-20170119-26543-ijpiag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C69%2C1595%2C1235&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Justice and Divine Vengeance Pursuing Crime – although the Nemesis of today will likely come with fewer wings.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Prudhon_juctice.jpg">Pierre-Paul Prud’hon</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Hubris is a dangerous cocktail of overconfidence, overambition, arrogance and pride fuelled by power and success. When found alongside contempt for the advice and criticism of others, hubris causes leaders to significantly overreach themselves, taking risky and reckless decisions with harmful, sometimes catastrophic consequences for themselves, their organisations, institutions, and even for society. Given the economic, social, and geopolitical damage that can ensue, we should learn to recognise the signs of how hubristic leaders talk and act, and how to mitigate the consequences.</p>
<p>We do not have to look far to find widely recognised “hubrists” from the worlds of politics and business. In the recent past, these include former US president, George W Bush, who, along with then British prime minister Tony Blair, overreached himself in the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/oct/29/comment.politics">2003 invasion of Iraq</a>. Or the former and final CEO of Lehman Brothers, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-09-12/where-is-dick-fuld-now-finding-lehman-brothers-last-ceo">Richard Fuld</a>, who in his overreaching transitioned from Wall Street royalty to, in the eyes of many, the pariah of the financial crisis, <a href="http://www.investopedia.com/articles/economics/09/lehman-brothers-collapse.asp">bringing down Lehman Brothers with him</a>. </p>
<p>While there is no shortage of hubrists in the public sphere today, hubris is far from a 21st-century phenomenon. <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/alexander_the_great.shtml">Alexander the Great</a> and <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/timelines/zg9kwmn">Napoleon Bonaparte</a> – while peerless as leaders in their time – both fell prey to hubris. The Ancient Greeks recognised its hazards and counselled against hubris in their myths and tragedies, often tying it to a reckoning meted out by the goddess of retribution and vengeance, <a href="http://www.theoi.com/Daimon/Nemesis.html">Nemesis</a>. But perhaps the most well known of the Greek myths to warn against hubris is that of Daedalus and Icarus.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/153431/original/image-20170119-26567-14ikvph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/153431/original/image-20170119-26567-14ikvph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/153431/original/image-20170119-26567-14ikvph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=649&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153431/original/image-20170119-26567-14ikvph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=649&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153431/original/image-20170119-26567-14ikvph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=649&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153431/original/image-20170119-26567-14ikvph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=815&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153431/original/image-20170119-26567-14ikvph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=815&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153431/original/image-20170119-26567-14ikvph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=815&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Daedalus and Icarus.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gowy-icaro-prado.jpg">Jacob Peter Gowy</a></span>
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<p>The myth recounts how, in order to escape from incarceration on the island of Crete, the master craftsman Daedalus fashioned two pairs of wings made from feathers and wax. The wings gave Daedalus and his son Icarus the godlike power of flight. However, the young, ebullient and overconfident Icarus ignored Daedalus’ warnings not to fly too high; the sun’s heat melted the wax holding the wings together and Icarus plunged to his death.</p>
<h2>Flying too close to the sun</h2>
<p>Hubrists don’t normally set out to wreak havoc, but this is all too frequently the unintended consequence of their actions. Icarus’ demise was an unintended consequence of his own temerity, and so he became the victim of his own excess. Likewise, Bush and Blair didn’t set out to create the turmoil in the Middle East that has reverberated for more than a decade, nor Fuld to catalyse a global financial near meltdown. But hubris and nemesis are inextricably linked; hubrists seem to invite nemesis, and somehow or other it comes to them – not as the <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=5BRU-0JuK84C&pg=PA104&lpg=PA104&dq=%E2%80%9CHubris+calls+for+nemesis,+and+in+one+form+or+another+it%27s+going+to+get+it,+not+as+a+punishment+from+outside+but+as+the+completion+of+a+pattern+already+started.%E2%80%9D&source=bl&ots=_Ym3hIBsnr&sig=sulXt9wJXLYwIEy1jLhmanppy6o&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj2lJuYls7RAhUhIMAKHbyyAI0Q6AEIKzAD#v=onepage&q=%E2%80%9CHubris%20calls%20for%20nemesis%2C%20and%20in%20one%20form%20or%20another%20it's%20going%20to%20get%20it%2C%20not%20as%20a%20punishment%20from%20outside%20but%20as%20the%20completion%20of%20a%20pattern%20already%20started.%E2%80%9D&f=false">philosopher Mary Midgley has noted</a> as punishment – but as the inevitable final act of a pattern already started. </p>
<p>If hubris is an occupational hazard for leaders, is nemesis its unavoidable outcome? Currently, world events are dominated by the election of Donald Trump as US president and Britain’s impending exit from the European Union. Will the unintended consequences of political leaders’ hubris play out before our eyes?</p>
<p>Consider former UK prime minister David Cameron’s decision to hold a simple in/out referendum on EU membership. Buoyed by the outcome of the by no means predictable Scottish independence referendum, Cameron’s gamble on EU membership was, in retrospect, overconfident and overambitious. He thought that in doing so he could be the Conservative leader who once and for all stopped his party’s eurosceptics from “<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5396358.stm">banging on about Europe</a>”. Cameron made this decision reportedly <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3216523/Chancellor-George-Osborne-tried-talk-David-Cameron-EU-referendum-fears-upset-business-leaders.html">against the advice of close colleagues such as George Osborne</a>, and so in the end it was the eurosceptics who finally got their way, and who now give free reign to their own hubristic contempt toward both the “Remainers” and Britain’s European partners.</p>
<p>The unintended consequences of Cameron’s overconfidence and overambition were calamitous for his own career, they are also potentially damaging not only for the UK but for the European Union and Europe itself.</p>
<h2>Another one rises?</h2>
<p>On the other side of the Atlantic, it is easy to see how the potential hazards of extreme self-regard could be playing out in the US. The billionaire businessman and president-elect, Donald Trump, already displayed palpable signs of hubris in the speech in which he <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/donald-trumps-festival-of-narcissism/2015/06/16/fd006c28-1459-11e5-9ddc-e3353542100c_story.html">declared his intention to seek nomination in June 2016</a>. In it he uttered a total of 257 references to himself (compared to a mere seven mentions of “America” or “American”) including: “I’m really rich”, “I’m proud of my net worth”, “I’ve done an amazing job”, “I beat China all the time — all the time”, “Rebuild the country’s infrastructure? Nobody can do that like me”, and so on.</p>
<p>Trump shows other signs of hubris in the contempt with which he holds <a href="https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/265895292191248385">the world’s top climate scientists</a> and the <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-russia-hacking-us-election-interference-intelligence-agencies-cia-meeting-delayed-a7508306.html">US intelligence agencies</a>, among others. According to his own <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/07/25/donald-trumps-ghostwriter-tells-all">ghostwriter turned arch-critic</a>, Tony “The Art of the Deal” Schwartz, Trump will do almost anything to prove how tough he is.</p>
<p>Positive self image is psychologically healthy, and self confidence, proper ambition and authentic pride are necessary qualities for any successful leader. However in the hubrist these qualities morph into excesses, and the hallmark of hubris is contempt. The result is that – one way or another – hubristic leaders end up overreaching themselves and, as we know, the retribution served by Nemesis is likely to be severe.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/71548/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Eugene Sadler-Smith is the Director of The Hubris Project at Surrey Business School.</span></em></p>The Greek myths teach that pride comes before a fall – something that our leaders, filled with hubris, rarely see before it’s too late.Eugene Sadler-Smith, Professor of Organisational Behaviour, University of SurreyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/201692013-11-26T14:36:45Z2013-11-26T14:36:45ZDangerous link between power and hubris in politics<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/36058/original/9nj6x7pq-1385381661.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">George W Bush: a man not to be misunderestimated. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source"> John Giles/PA Archive</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Most people agree on the qualities that a leader should have: we prefer to follow people who are confident, decisive, ambitious and persuasive rather than the insecure, dithering, apathetic and weak. So it’s not surprising that the people who possess these leadership qualities are those who seek, and often achieve, positions of power and influence. </p>
<p>There is, however, a dark side to power, which derives from its mind-changing effects on the people who hold it: the reluctance of subordinates to criticise or question leading to contempt for the views of others; successful outcomes of bold decisions blurring the boundaries between judgement and recklessness; personal status within an organisation generalising into a belief in “special qualities”. </p>
<p>The greater the power, the greater the risk of these cognitive distortions taking hold and the worse the devastation when things go wrong, as they surely must when contact with reality is lost.</p>
<p>An increasingly popular way of describing this pattern of behaviour is by using the term “hubris”. In ancient Greece, where it was a legal term, hubris denoted the equivalent of grievous bodily harm; in modern English hubris has come to refer to recklessness and overconfidence among those who wield power in financial or political arenas – particularly when it leads to spectacular or disastrous errors of judgement. </p>
<p>The behaviour of Fred Goodwin while he was CEO of the Royal Bank of Scotland and of the senior management at Enron, are popular examples from the world of finance. George W Bush’s embarrassingly premature announcement of “mission accomplished” aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln less than two months after the allied invasion of Iraq is perhaps the most celebrated example in the political sphere. What all have in common, however, is the contrast between the self-confidence of the leader and the devastating aftermath of their decisions.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">These might seem like isolated and extreme examples, but once recognised, this pattern of behaviour is not hard to discern in other contexts, and the stereotypical nature of its development suggests a biological level explanation. The links between testosterone level and the experience of success was documented in a series of experiments conducted on Wall Street traders by the banker-turned-neuroscientist John Coates. The effect of power on the release of dopamine, activating the brain’s reward network occupies numerous behavioural neuroscience laboratories.
Combining his experience as a senior politician (British Foreign Secretary, 1977-79), medical neurologist and neuropharmacology researcher, David Owen has claimed the acquisition of power can, in a susceptible individual, induce a unique pattern of behavioural traits and expressed beliefs, which, he suggests, should be recognised as a distinct personality disorder: “Hubris Syndrome”.
Margaret Thatcher: ‘We’ are rejoicing.
John Giles/PA Archive
To support this claim, Owen looked at the personal, medical and political histories of a series of 20th century UK prime ministers and US presidents and identified a common set of features that could (following traditional methodology or psychiatric disorders) be used as diagnostic criteria. The features included not only the narcissistic and antisocial tendencies already identified (exaggerated self-belief; contempt for others; an insatiable appetite for self-glorification) but also novel behaviours, such as a tendency to refer to themselves in the third person, to use the royal “we”, to identify themselves with the nation and to take decisions in an increasingly impulsive fashion.
Candidates for hubris syndrome
After eliminating those whose behaviour might have been influenced by psychiatric co-morbidity, alcohol or drugs, Owen identified three political leaders from the USA and UK who met criteria for a diagnosis of Hubris Syndrome: the former US president, George W. Bush, and prime ministers David Lloyd-George, Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair.
Tony Blair: ‘Hubristic? Us?’
Sean Dempsey/PA Wire
When I read Owen and Davidson’s report of their research and findings in the neurology journal Brain, I experienced the thrill of recognising an unanswered scientific question that was not just important, but simply addressed. I had been working with archived language produced by authors who went on to develop Alzheimer’s disease in later life, trying to identify markers for the effects of the disease on language, and to determine how long before the emergence of symptoms these changes could be detected. I wondered whether a similar approach could be taken in hubris syndrome, realising that extensive records of language use in two of the Hubris Syndrome sufferers (Blair and Thatcher), sampled at regular intervals over the course of their tenure of office, were freely available in the form of speeches delivered to the House of Commons at the weekly prime minister’s questions and then transcribed for the official record (Hansard).
Lloyd George: knew your father.
PA Archive
Members of my neuroscience research group at St George’s, University of London set to work looking for words, phrases and patterns of language use that changed in a consistent fashion as the years spent in power increased. John Major’s speeches were used as a control condition, as Owen and Davidson had found no evidence of Hubris Syndrome from his time as prime minister.
We found a number of candidate markers: true to Owen’s criteria we saw changes in the relative frequency of “we” and “I” in the speeches of Blair and Thatcher at times when they were enjoying particular success or popularity.
Peter Garrard
A text’s key words are those that appear in it with the highest likelihood compared to a relevant set of reference texts. “Keyness” is simply a measure of this likelihood. The graph shows changes in the keyness of “we” relative to “I” by year of office for the three Prime Ministers that we studied. The contributions of all other speakers in PMQs were used as the reference texts.
This marker is particularly informative in Blair’s language, and it was interesting that the initial peak corresponded to his early, successful uses of military deployment in pursuit of foreign policy (in Kosovo and Sierra Leone). The smaller peak in Margaret Thatcher’s values coincides with the year of her re-election and the aftermath of the Falkland’s War
We also saw that words indicating self-confidence (such as “sure” and “certain”) gained in frequency as time spent in office increased, as did text entropy (a measure of unpredictability borrowed from information theory). We interpreted the latter as potentially indicative of the “restlessness, recklessness and impulsiveness” that Owen and Davidson had identified as one of the unique diagnostic criteria for Hubris syndrome.
Can hubris be controlled?
Our third question (can hubris syndrome be controlled, prevented or otherwise reined in?) is the most difficult of the three. A comforting truth is that democratic elections and government by cabinet with collective responsibility have immunised many modern nation states against the excesses of individuals whose authority is or becomes inalienable. But hubristic leadership in organisations where no such checks and balances exist can have devastating consequences.
In Greek mythology, Daedalus warned his son Icarus against flying too high or too low on the wings that he made to allow them both to escape captivity. Icarus, intoxicated by the experience of flight, ignored the advice and paid the ultimate penalty. The Daedalus Trust was established in 2011 to encourage recognition of the dangers of the “intoxication of power”, and to promote and fund research into its causes, manifestations and prevention. Through the medium of open meetings the message has been spreading among academics, scientists, and the business community, but it is clear that the enemy is still out there, and much hard work remains to be done.</span></figcaption>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Garrard sits on the steering committee and research advisory panel of the Daedalus Trust.</span></em></p>Most people agree on the qualities that a leader should have: we prefer to follow people who are confident, decisive, ambitious and persuasive rather than the insecure, dithering, apathetic and weak. So…Peter Garrard, Reader in Neurology, St George's, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.