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I am a big believer that leaders need to understand social psychology. Unfortunately every one of these debunking studies makes it very hard for the non-expert

I am a big believer that leaders need to understand social psychology. Unfortunately every one of these debunking studies makes it very hard for the non-expert to know what to apply in the field. It's very frustrating! (I suppose one could say the same about economics)

danharaj 11y ago
If by social psychology you mean "the way people think and behave socially", i agree. If you mean "the results and theories of the discipline called 'social psychology'", i disagree. It must be the case that each of us has some understanding of our social behavior and the behavior of others. Otherwise we would never form social structures. i don't know if i've ever gained real insight into human behavior from reading the results of a contrived experiment.
- JoshCole 11y ago
  Yeah. I've actually had a lot better results from Proverbs for example with regards to social behavior: giving gifts to people who are angry with you pacifies. There are other studies I've heard of that are really popular too, like the experiment where people are told that they must continue torturing someone, that when I've looked into it weren't nearly so iron-clad as claimed.
- mathattack 11y ago
  i don't know if i've ever gained real insight into human behavior from reading the results of a contrived experiment. Therein lies my problem. :-) I want to know more, but most sources are woefully unreliable.
  - danharaj 11y ago
    Your own life is the richest source of information you have about social psychology!
    - nsajko 11y ago
      No, your life is a source of proverbs.
roymurdock 11y ago
WRT economics, an understanding of the major concepts is probably more than enough: elasticity of demand, substitutes, complements, barriers to entry, network effect, substitution effect, income effect, (diminishing) returns to scale, altruism vs. greed, monetary vs. fiscal policy, real vs. nominal, normative vs. positive, inflation, time value of money, aligning incentives, setting precedents, and basic game theory (how to draw and play a simple game w/ payoff tables). I doubt the actual models get used outside of academia and central banks. The frameworks I have studied have been so situation-specific and strong-assumption-driven that it would take much more time and effort to cram reality into a model than to simply use high level concepts, some basic data, a few customer interviews, and intuition to inform strategy.
- cgio 11y ago
  I would argue the leadership of both successful and failed economies have an understanding of the topics you outline. Therefore, the understanding of these topics is only enough to make efficient decisions if your decisions are efficient.
whitegrape 11y ago
It'd be nice if this from Bertrand Russell was remembered more: "(1) that when the experts are agreed, the opposite opinion cannot be held to be certain; (2) that when they are not agreed, no opinion can be regarded as certain by a non-expert; and (3) that when they all hold that no sufficient grounds for a positive opinion exist, the ordinary man would do well to suspend his judgment." Of course, most people don't actually even see what the experts say, they just take on the belief of what one person reporting on one expert says... so you get misconceptions like http://danluu.com/dunning-kruger/ http://danluu.com/dunning-kruger/ I'd prefer if leaders focused on being good leaders and not trying to play expert or even knowledgeable-enough on technical matters that really don't concern them. A good leader will find the domain experts and drill them for critical information needed for their decision making, they don't need to understand the domain details. (And they can verify their trust with other experts.)

danharaj 11y ago

If by social psychology you mean "the way people think and behave socially", i agree. If you mean "the results and theories of the discipline called 'social psychology'", i disagree. It must be the case that each of us has some understanding of our social behavior and the behavior of others. Otherwise we would never form social structures. i don't know if i've ever gained real insight into human behavior from reading the results of a contrived experiment.

JoshCole 11y ago
Yeah. I've actually had a lot better results from Proverbs for example with regards to social behavior: giving gifts to people who are angry with you pacifies. There are other studies I've heard of that are really popular too, like the experiment where people are told that they must continue torturing someone, that when I've looked into it weren't nearly so iron-clad as claimed.
mathattack 11y ago
i don't know if i've ever gained real insight into human behavior from reading the results of a contrived experiment. Therein lies my problem. :-) I want to know more, but most sources are woefully unreliable.
- danharaj 11y ago
  Your own life is the richest source of information you have about social psychology!
  - nsajko 11y ago
    No, your life is a source of proverbs.

roymurdock 11y ago

WRT economics, an understanding of the major concepts is probably more than enough: elasticity of demand, substitutes, complements, barriers to entry, network effect, substitution effect, income effect, (diminishing) returns to scale, altruism vs. greed, monetary vs. fiscal policy, real vs. nominal, normative vs. positive, inflation, time value of money, aligning incentives, setting precedents, and basic game theory (how to draw and play a simple game w/ payoff tables). I doubt the actual models get used outside of academia and central banks. The frameworks I have studied have been so situation-specific and strong-assumption-driven that it would take much more time and effort to cram reality into a model than to simply use high level concepts, some basic data, a few customer interviews, and intuition to inform strategy.

cgio 11y ago
I would argue the leadership of both successful and failed economies have an understanding of the topics you outline. Therefore, the understanding of these topics is only enough to make efficient decisions if your decisions are efficient.

whitegrape 11y ago

It'd be nice if this from Bertrand Russell was remembered more: "(1) that when the experts are agreed, the opposite opinion cannot be held to be certain; (2) that when they are not agreed, no opinion can be regarded as certain by a non-expert; and (3) that when they all hold that no sufficient grounds for a positive opinion exist, the ordinary man would do well to suspend his judgment." Of course, most people don't actually even see what the experts say, they just take on the belief of what one person reporting on one expert says... so you get misconceptions like http://danluu.com/dunning-kruger/ http://danluu.com/dunning-kruger/ I'd prefer if leaders focused on being good leaders and not trying to play expert or even knowledgeable-enough on technical matters that really don't concern them. A good leader will find the domain experts and drill them for critical information needed for their decision making, they don't need to understand the domain details. (And they can verify their trust with other experts.)