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Also known as the Drill Sergeant Paradox. Imagine that shouting has no actual effect on performance, but it is traditional to shout at underlings when they do

Also known as the Drill Sergeant Paradox. Imagine that shouting has no actual effect on performance, but it is traditional to shout at underlings when they do something particularly poorly. When your trainees screw up, you berate them - and afterwards they actually do tend to do better. Unfortunately, this is because the screwup is more often than not a random variation, and the improvement is due to the mean regression, not the treatment. Conversely, praising them when they do well (again, assuming no underlying effect) actually seems to worsen their performance.

brewdad 11y ago
I wonder, has anyone ever tried berating the successes and praising the failures?
- alphydan 11y ago
  That's a really dumb idea ;) </meta>
  - Jtsummers 11y ago
    As written, I agree. But a more sensible way (well, kinda, still backwards): Praise the individuals even when they screw up (great job cleaning that kitchen, even though there's still dirt under all the tables) and berate them when they do well (nitpick even the tiniest speck of remaining dirt in an otherwise immaculate kitchen). Still seems like a bad idea. Destroyed morale for the ones that do well but get scolded anyways, and encouraged laziness for the ones that do poorly.
    - CPLX 11y ago
      I believe this is called "marriage"
- nikanj 11y ago
  The VC culture? If you define failure as "didn't make any money" and success as "made some money". Recently there was an article lamenting the "early exit syndrome" that startups have, where they prefer getting some money to potentially getting a lot more or nothing
  - p4wnc6 11y ago
    I think you might be referring to the early exit syndrome of Midwestern startups [1]. The point of the article was not to say that exits are bad, only that to develop a cultural milieu of technology in a particular region, there is a need for at least some companies to stick it out and remain determined to become long-lived and predicated upon a chosen workplace culture. If companies never do that, then a given region can't generate enough inertia to remain a competitive place, and this has all sorts of bad effects on the employment market in that area. I thought Michael O. Church had a great extension of that article in his recent post [2]. He argues that the broader short-term goals of VCs in general are misaligned with the fundamental value creation premise that undergirds the idea of start-up culture (or at least what was start-up culture when the term was new). [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10579370 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10579370 [2] https://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2015/11/17/its-not-early-exit-disease-just-exit-disease-thats-killing-innovation-outside-of-and-inside-silicon-valley/ https://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2015/11/17/its-not-earl...
- 67726e 11y ago
  Wasn't that one of the items in that CIA sabotage manual posted a few weeks ago?
jsprogrammer 11y ago
>Imagine that shouting has no actual effect on performance Why would shouting have no effect on performance? People generally don't like being shouted at and often modify their behavior as a result. At the very least, a person being shouted at has to process the input. Think about it, the shout interrupts whatever context existed before the shout. Future actions are now based on a context where there was an interruption instead of a context where there was no interruption.
- fauigerzigerk 11y ago
  I guess that depends on the reason for poor performance. If it's lack of effort then I guess you are right. If it's lack of ability, shouting may not make a difference. If it's nervousness or lack of confidence, then shouting is probably going to make things worse.
  - p4wnc6 11y ago
    More generally this is an empirical question. Does shouting cause improved performance? Just Googling, a lot of people don't think it does (me among them) and seem to have plausible reasons, but that's not an empirically decisive conclusion.
  - Gibbon1 11y ago
    Threat of shouting likely increases the cognitive load leading to poor performance.
- fucking_tragedy 11y ago
  If we look at it from a behavioralist perspective, one that drops the addition of a introspective hypothesis ("People generally don't like being shouted at and often modify their behavior as a result", contexts) in favor of empirical evidence, we could simply test if shouting has any effect on performance.
  - jsprogrammer 11y ago
    Behaviorialism is bunk. >we could simply test if shouting has any effect on performance Maybe we are using different definitions of performance, but what you want to test is essentially untestable. You'd have to be able to observe the exact same situation twice, once with shouting and once without. This is impossible.
riot504 11y ago
Shouting in the military particularly during boot camp is used to create a simulated stressful environment.
- p4wnc6 11y ago
  The same idea happens in sports coaching, where simulating a stressful environment is not generally desired except in certain situations. Yet coaches yelling at youth league basketball players who just so happened to miss their first few free throws, but then regressed to some respectable mean by making an average number of free throws after that, will pat themselves on the back and believe that yelling was a form of constructive feedback.
  - a3n 11y ago
    The coach may not be using yelling as a tool. He may be stressed because he needs the win either to stay on as a middle or high school coach, or because he needs the school trophy for his sense of self worth. The kids may just be a resource for his own goals.
patmcc 11y ago
Isn't part of the Drill Sergeant's role to encourage close team cohesion? If you have 50 diverse marines that need to get along, giving them a common enemy (the shouting Drill Sergeant) is beneficial. If he shouts at everyone all the time, there are no favorites.
cortesoft 11y ago
My favorite way to illustrate this is to imagine your 'recruits' are coins that you will flip. Heads is a good result, tails is a bad result. Now, flip all your coins. Yell at the ones that got tails, praise the ones that got heads. Now, repeat your test. Wow, 50% of the ones you yelled at 'improved' and 50% of the ones you 'praised' got worse! It is clear we need to yell at coins more.
brc 11y ago
Also big with speed camera installations. A spate of accidents occur, speed cameras get installed. The rate of accidents falls, the speed cameras are claimed to be the result. The problem is that accidents are randomly spaced (assuming some level of road design and driver training) and putting in a teepee beside the road would probably show the same effect. Particularly so if the speed camera is not obvious, so is unlikely to have an effect on a driver unless they travel the route frequently and get fined.

brewdad 11y ago

I wonder, has anyone ever tried berating the successes and praising the failures?

alphydan 11y ago
That's a really dumb idea ;) </meta>
- Jtsummers 11y ago
  As written, I agree. But a more sensible way (well, kinda, still backwards): Praise the individuals even when they screw up (great job cleaning that kitchen, even though there's still dirt under all the tables) and berate them when they do well (nitpick even the tiniest speck of remaining dirt in an otherwise immaculate kitchen). Still seems like a bad idea. Destroyed morale for the ones that do well but get scolded anyways, and encouraged laziness for the ones that do poorly.
  - CPLX 11y ago
    I believe this is called "marriage"
nikanj 11y ago
The VC culture? If you define failure as "didn't make any money" and success as "made some money". Recently there was an article lamenting the "early exit syndrome" that startups have, where they prefer getting some money to potentially getting a lot more or nothing
- p4wnc6 11y ago
  I think you might be referring to the early exit syndrome of Midwestern startups [1]. The point of the article was not to say that exits are bad, only that to develop a cultural milieu of technology in a particular region, there is a need for at least some companies to stick it out and remain determined to become long-lived and predicated upon a chosen workplace culture. If companies never do that, then a given region can't generate enough inertia to remain a competitive place, and this has all sorts of bad effects on the employment market in that area. I thought Michael O. Church had a great extension of that article in his recent post [2]. He argues that the broader short-term goals of VCs in general are misaligned with the fundamental value creation premise that undergirds the idea of start-up culture (or at least what was start-up culture when the term was new). [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10579370 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10579370 [2] https://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2015/11/17/its-not-early-exit-disease-just-exit-disease-thats-killing-innovation-outside-of-and-inside-silicon-valley/ https://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2015/11/17/its-not-earl...
67726e 11y ago
Wasn't that one of the items in that CIA sabotage manual posted a few weeks ago?

jsprogrammer 11y ago

>Imagine that shouting has no actual effect on performance Why would shouting have no effect on performance? People generally don't like being shouted at and often modify their behavior as a result. At the very least, a person being shouted at has to process the input. Think about it, the shout interrupts whatever context existed before the shout. Future actions are now based on a context where there was an interruption instead of a context where there was no interruption.

fauigerzigerk 11y ago
I guess that depends on the reason for poor performance. If it's lack of effort then I guess you are right. If it's lack of ability, shouting may not make a difference. If it's nervousness or lack of confidence, then shouting is probably going to make things worse.
- p4wnc6 11y ago
  More generally this is an empirical question. Does shouting cause improved performance? Just Googling, a lot of people don't think it does (me among them) and seem to have plausible reasons, but that's not an empirically decisive conclusion.
- Gibbon1 11y ago
  Threat of shouting likely increases the cognitive load leading to poor performance.
fucking_tragedy 11y ago
If we look at it from a behavioralist perspective, one that drops the addition of a introspective hypothesis ("People generally don't like being shouted at and often modify their behavior as a result", contexts) in favor of empirical evidence, we could simply test if shouting has any effect on performance.
- jsprogrammer 11y ago
  Behaviorialism is bunk. >we could simply test if shouting has any effect on performance Maybe we are using different definitions of performance, but what you want to test is essentially untestable. You'd have to be able to observe the exact same situation twice, once with shouting and once without. This is impossible.

riot504 11y ago

Shouting in the military particularly during boot camp is used to create a simulated stressful environment.

p4wnc6 11y ago
The same idea happens in sports coaching, where simulating a stressful environment is not generally desired except in certain situations. Yet coaches yelling at youth league basketball players who just so happened to miss their first few free throws, but then regressed to some respectable mean by making an average number of free throws after that, will pat themselves on the back and believe that yelling was a form of constructive feedback.
- a3n 11y ago
  The coach may not be using yelling as a tool. He may be stressed because he needs the win either to stay on as a middle or high school coach, or because he needs the school trophy for his sense of self worth. The kids may just be a resource for his own goals.

patmcc 11y ago

Isn't part of the Drill Sergeant's role to encourage close team cohesion? If you have 50 diverse marines that need to get along, giving them a common enemy (the shouting Drill Sergeant) is beneficial. If he shouts at everyone all the time, there are no favorites.

cortesoft 11y ago

My favorite way to illustrate this is to imagine your 'recruits' are coins that you will flip. Heads is a good result, tails is a bad result. Now, flip all your coins. Yell at the ones that got tails, praise the ones that got heads. Now, repeat your test. Wow, 50% of the ones you yelled at 'improved' and 50% of the ones you 'praised' got worse! It is clear we need to yell at coins more.

brc 11y ago

Also big with speed camera installations. A spate of accidents occur, speed cameras get installed. The rate of accidents falls, the speed cameras are claimed to be the result. The problem is that accidents are randomly spaced (assuming some level of road design and driver training) and putting in a teepee beside the road would probably show the same effect. Particularly so if the speed camera is not obvious, so is unlikely to have an effect on a driver unless they travel the route frequently and get fined.