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Facial expression software confirms bronze medalists happier than silver
- steerablesafe 5y agoSo how do sports with single-elimination compare to other sports in this regard? In single-elimination bronze medalists finish on a high note, while silver medalists finish with a loss.
- hprotagonist 5y agoThe old joke: "And remember, second place is first loser!"
- andi999 5y agoIn high school there was a kid who got all A except one B. First I thought they must be very happy. Then I thought again....
- jhgb 5y agoI was that guy in college. It's an OCD-triggering experience, looking at the transcript. Can confirm that it's not a good feeling.
- duxup 5y agoIn my experience nobody fretted about grades and minor grading issues more than the folks who had high marks. The burden of perfection (or close to it) is pretty brutal. Among other topics the film Gattaca seemed to address that issue.
- piyh 5y agoTaking the "good enough" approach in life has probably left a lot of potential on the table, but it really has gotten the maximal utility out of any work I put in. It's probably ~50%-100% more work to go from a B+ in life to a straight A.
- rurp 5y agoThe opportunity costs can be profound as well. Doing B rather than A level work on many tasks can allow you to get 2-3x more things done.
- Buttons840 5y agoLike worrying about the first tiny scratch on your new car or new phone. Eventually it happens, you feel bad, but then are free from the burden of perfection.
- userbinator 5y agoThe effect is also strengthened when you're competing with your peers for grades; it's been several decades now but I still remember someone beating me by 0.7% going into the final exam, and me finishing the course 0.1% ahead of him. It's interesting I still remember the differences, but not the grade (high 90s, probably) nor the course. (Contrary to popular western culture, there are groups who enjoy "grade-racing" --- and from first-hand experience, I can say it was very motivational as well as stressful.)
- rejectedandsad 5y agoThat was me. I wasn’t happy at all after I got 2nd.
- Xophmeister 5y agoI got a distinction for my masters thesis, but my exam results where such that I was 1-2% off from a distinction overall. I was not happy that day!
- heroHACK17 5y agotl;dr: Silver: "Shit... I was so close to Gold." Bronze: "Damn, I medaled!"
- xt00 5y agoThis seems logical, especially if the person who got bronze was not expecting to get higher. If the person who had gotten gold previously got bronze they probably are not going to be feeling this way so, so a bit of an expectations game too potentially..
- bombcar 5y agoIf you take some simple theory - say that the top five people will be roughly the same across any tries, and three will metal, then the bronze medal winner is likely to be someone who wasn't certain they could medal at all.
- locallost 5y agoI did not see any mention of the type of sports they analysed. I think it makes a big difference, e.g. winning silver in a tournament type competition like basketball means you lost your last game, whereas winning bronze means you won your last game. On the other hand a 100 meter dash is 8 people racing all at the same time, so winning silver does not feel like losing gold as much to me. You still beat out the bronze medalist in direct competition. edit: but of course, it's also common that there are two big names in a competition, so winning silver in that case means you lost gold.
- bragh 5y agoYes, IIRC, for Formula One there was a saying ages ago that the 3 most unhappy participants after a race are 2nd place (did not win), 4th place (did not get to be on the podium) and 7th place (did not get any points). edit: Now I looked at it again and I see that F1 has adjusted their points system throughout the following years, so you need to replace the 7th place with whatever is relevant now.
- notjustanymike 5y agoThey simplified F1 a bit. Now the most unhappy participants are Haas.
- irrational 5y agoWhat do you mean by Haas?
- antiterra 5y agoI think studies confirming conventional wisdom are often unfairly maligned as uselessly addressing the obvious. It makes sense to back up perception with data. However, the model of competitors feeling that silver=‘almost won’ and bronze=‘lucky to get a medal’ is by no means as novel as they claim. It’s strange to me that they present it as ‘new’ instead of a commonly held
- xhkkffbf 5y agoIf you adjust for population growth and the growth of the games, it's clear that we should be giving medals to more than just the top three. And the results have gotten even closer. When I see someone like Torri Huske miss a medal by a hundredths of seconds, I think that something is just wrong. There should be medals going down much lower in the results.
- dogma1138 5y agoThat’s true for some events, baseball has 6 teams competing so if you copied say MOBA’s/RTS’s and have bronze, silver, gold, platinum and diamond you’ll have what 5 out of 6 teams getting a medal? Medals aren’t everything passing the qualifiers is an achievement on its own…
- Apocryphon 5y agoWhat metals would those runner-up medals be made of?
- GloriousKoji 5y agoAluminum, glass, plastic and cardboard.
- h2odragon 5y agoAfter cardboard, sticker! gold stars through pink unicorns. and then a used pizza box for last place, because everyone else needs to feel better than someone.
- otherme123 5y agoThe fourth place is sometimes called "chocolate medal". But if IRC, 4 to 8 get an olympic diploma.
- asciimov 5y agoAs someone who was involved with music competitions I can attest to being happier with 3rd than 2nd. For me it was the fact that if I was 3rd, well at least 2 people were better than me, but if I was 2nd (and it was a close competition) it became an issue of "why did I loose?" When competition is close you can loose for factors outside of the competition itself. You can loose because of differences in judging opinions or because of a Judge not liking you, worse ranked competitors can win due to scoring calculation systems, you can even loose biased on how hungry or how bad the judges last meal was.
- crb 5y agoConfirming research done by Jerry Seinfeld in 1998: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xK9rbwM3omA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xK9rbwM3omA
- petermcneeley 5y ago"Are you color blind too Vincent? Its silver. Jerome Morrow was never meant to be one step down on the podium. With all I had going for me I was still just second best." - Gattaca
- chegra 5y agoI also found my C students are happier than my A students.
- JamilD 5y agoA students are often formerly unhappy C students. C students are often happy C students.
- dogorman 5y ago> A students are often formerly unhappy C students. Is there any empirical evidence for this? It flies in the face of my experience, which is that A students were A students from the start; that C students almost never become A students, and that A students sometimes become C students.
- ska 5y agoI think both cases exist commonly. There are plenty of people entirely capable of A marks in most educational situations who don't get them because they don't care and don't do the work. Something changes and they get interested. The jump from an indifferent C to a solid A often isn't that far. Somewhat related: There are more PhD's than you might expect that were also high school drop outs.
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- m3kw9 5y agoBronze medallist by the time the competition is near the end, usually compete just to get on podium, or they will feel a silver was lost instead of gold, but a podium was gained. Silver medalist usually compete for the gold near the end, a gold lost is a bigger loss, and a silver is a bad consolation.
- JamilD 5y agoI’m very skeptical about the veracity and accuracy of facial recognition software to detect emotions. I went to an affective computing conference in 2019 and was underwhelmed; models couldn’t distinguish between looking upwards (and raising your eyebrows) from exhibiting surprise. Emotions are complex and personal, and the phrase from the article “facial expression software — which nearly eliminates possible bias” seems absolutely ludicrous to me. I take results like this with an absolutely massive grain of salt, and don’t expect them to be reproducible. The danger is that they’re “catchy”, clickbait-y results, that are popular because people like to hypothesize about underlying psychological reasons why those bronze medalists might be happier. But let’s examine the core claim first, and not take facial recognition software as a ground truth for emotional state.
- rank0 5y agoExcellent point. People need to be more skeptical of novel technology in general. I mean, the big proponents of any new technology usually have a financial incentive to over sell its capabilities. I've noticed that with AI/ML especially people are willing to hand-wave away nuance and blindly believe that anything is possible. In reality AI is mostly iterative pattern matching and is far from perfect. In this case however, I do believe that bronze medalists are happier than silver medalists provided that all the participants had a similar probability of victory.
- necovek 5y ago> I do believe that bronze medalists are happier than silver medalists provided that all the participants had a similar probability of victory. But that's never the case: betting companies are good at earning money off of that.
- rflrob 5y agoIn this case, however, there is evidently prior research using humans judging the faces that shows similar results. There definitely are all kinds of biases that could creep in from using facial recognition software, but a well designed study will attempt to quantify and control for those biases. I definitely agree that the idea that software eliminates bias is laughable. Swaps it for another, hopefully less extreme set of biases doesn’t draw as many clicks, though.
- MichaelZuo 5y agoMakes sense, bronze medallist are just happy to be on the podium whereas silver medallists usually messed up slightly, or even worse are simply slightly worse than the top dog, which prevented them from getting the gold.
- omgwtfbbq 5y ago2nd place is just 1st loser
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- pugworthy 5y agoFunny enough there’s a meme that illustrates the findings.
- renewiltord 5y agoIt’s only 400 photos. They could have used human beings rather than AI. The result is probably bunkum.
- GloriousKoji 5y agoCornell University already did that over a decade ago so the conclusion that bronze medalist appear happier is probably true as the human and AI models got the same results.
- jedberg 5y agoI feel like this would be heavily biased by the culture of the people in their training set and the culture of the medalists. Different cultures have different facial expressions for happiness.
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- Shmebulock 5y agoThis fits my personal experience very well. I was once a volunteer at the world championships of a team sport. At the podium sceremony my job was to lead the team to the spot where each player received their medal. The bronze medalists were super happy and smiling. Almost all silver medalists that I led to the podium were literally crying. No sophisticated facial recognition was needed to ascertain who was happier.
- necovek 5y agoMedal ceremonies in team sports are usually after a bronze medal match (which bronze medalist won), and a gold medal match (which silver medalist just lost).
- nerdponx 5y agoIn addition to the "last match" effect mentioned in the thread, I wonder if this has to do with who wins which medal. Maybe the people winning bronze are more often doing better than they expected, while the people winning silver are more likely to expect that they might have been able to win gold.
- agumonkey 5y ago`better than nothing > so closed to win` I guess
- decebalus1 5y agoOf course they do [1] https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/bronze-medal https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/bronze-medal
- mritun 5y agoFor my bachelors I went to this school in India which did grading on a 10 point scale - AA == 10, DD == 4, FF (fail and eligible for re-exam) == 3 and FR (fail and repeat the coursework next semester). Gradesheet was put publically in the hall. I consistently saw that the two happiest people were those either got the AA or DD. When I got AA I was obviously happy! Once I got a DD on a particularly difficult course. I was damn happy I didn't fail!
- foolfoolz 5y agod is for diploma
- partiallypro 5y agoAs Jerry Seinfeld once said, when you win silver, you're the 1st place loser. No one lost ahead of you.
- bmmayer1 5y agoThe Olympics is really my favorite sporting event. Although, I think I have a problem with that silver medal. Because when you think about it, you win the gold - you feel good, you win the bronze - you think, "Well, at least I got something". But when you win that silver it's like, "Congratulations, you almost won. Of all the losers you came in first of that group. You're the number one loser. No one lost ahead of you!" - Jerry Seinfeld
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- cdstyh 5y agoCompare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to other people.
- gnicholas 5y agoWell, there's a silver lining (pun intended), which is that the silver medal is made out of pure silver and is therefore worth much more than the bronze medal. The gold medal is made of solid silver that is plated by a small amount (4oz, IIRC) of gold. EDIT: 6 grams, not 4oz, as pointed out below.
- viztor 5y agoPeople who won Bronze might never thought they were going to win anything at all. People who win Silver generally went after the Gold.
- whoisjuan 5y agoYou don't need a study to understand this. Generally speaking getting silver means that you were fighting to get gold and you couldn't make it. Getting bronze means that you were fighting to be in the podium and you made it. Again, this is a very general appreciation but it's likely the case for most athletes. In the Olympics you already know before hand who is a favorite and who is an underdog. Of course the athletes are self-aware enough to understand this as well.
- dudeman13 5y agoYou DO need a study to understand this. Humanity's track record with 'you don't need a study' isn't exactly stellar. If you don't study stuff like this, your models of the world won't update on 'obvious' things like geocentrism or spontaneous generation. The last century saw enough of these rationalizations for human behaviour - they miss the mark more often than not. Now for why they decided to use facial expression software on the other hand...
- smileypete 5y agoOnly an anecdote, but... https://cdn-ctstaging.pressidium.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/CORVOS_00019674-046.jpg https://cdn-ctstaging.pressidium.com/wp-content/uploads/2020... https://www.taipeitimes.com/images/2012/08/05/P18-120805-a5.jpg https://www.taipeitimes.com/images/2012/08/05/P18-120805-a5.... :)
- shadilay 5y agoIn the case of the Chinese athlete, perhaps it is because the Chinese government takes a very dim view of 'failure'.
- omoikane 5y agoThis is replicating a 1995 research, the new bit here appears to be the use of software to analyze facial expressions.
- golemiprague 5y agoThat's actually good since most psychological research is not replicated and many times when they try to replicate the results are different.
- protomyth 5y agoAlso, in bracket events, the bronze medalists won their last match while the silver medalists lost their's.
- omot 5y agoI heard something similar for management. In an org chart ICs and very top executives are the happiest. Middle management tend to be the most miserable.
- Cd00d 5y agoInteresting. I think middle management is more stressful because your job is to execute on business goal, but your influence is still limited. There's too much out of your control to feel confident in success or that the failures are solely due to your own decision processes.
- jeegsy 5y agoI love it when studies match intuition. Silver mad they didnt get Gold, Bronze happy to get a medal.
- anm89 5y agoI wonder if there is bias where, in advance of the competition, the silver earners are more likely to think they have a shot at gold than the bronze earners or if they are generally more experienced.
- jb775 5y agoProbably because mentally bronze is 1 place away from not being a medalist while silver is 1 place away from being best in the world.
- croes 5y agoHow often was the bronze winner a surprise winner or a runner up and gold and silver winners the favorites?
- agnosticmantis 5y agoMy prediction: Soon this is going to be generalized and percolate into all sorts of self-help books and pop psy TED talks: why less is more, you need to lose to win, etc.
- squarefoot 5y agoIn sports where there's no group competition but results come after gold final, bronze final, semi-finals, etc. a silver medal means you lost the gold final, that is, your last match was a defeat, while if you get the bronze it means your last match ended up a victory, also a victory coming well after you accepted the reality that there won't be any gold.
- malachismith 5y agoI love that it took facial expression software for people to understand this. All anyone had to do was talk to a dozen internationally competitive athletes to understand this. Happiest competitor is the one who wins. Second happiest is the one who finishes third. Third happiest is second. Fourth happiest are all the finalists who didn't medal and didn't take fourth. And fourth place... Yeah. Fourth place SUCKS.
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- dp-hackernews 5y agoUm, isn't that the obvious statement of the century? Perhaps even more obvious than "Computer confirms, gold medalist happier than silver medalist" Of course, silver LOST to gold, and bronze WON something better than nothing...
- Barrin92 5y ago>The results replicated and expanded on what was previously found: bronze medalists were more likely to exhibit a smile than silver medalists, while gold medalists were happier than other medalists Confirmation of the fairly obvious aside, if anyone thinks that something as superficial as smiling tells you anything reliable about the internal mental state of a person we truly have reached a new age of phrenology.
- meristohm 5y agoThis podcast discusses the phenomenon as well: Episode 40: Silver and Gold HIDDEN BRAIN AUG 1, 2016 ⋅ 22:24
- outsidetheparty 5y agoDoes this actually give us a “ better idea why athletes who did objectively better, as in won silver versus bronze, might appear less happy” as claimed by the marketing professor running the study? How does this test the upward/downward comparison hypothesis? I’m very ready to accept that image recognition can help support the idea that third place winners are happier than second place, but I don’t see how that helps tell us why at all.
- nr2x 5y ago"facial expression software — which nearly eliminates possible bias" ...and this is why we shouldn't let PR people write about ML.
- tanbog4 5y agoWe're looking at the best of the best. These athletes - even the ones that finished last - have probably won countless events in their lives and will probably win a lot more. They will probably get over it just fine. It's ok to be disappointed sometimes, it can even be motivating.
- ReptileMan 5y agoOnly the second remembers who finished second...
- ummonk 5y agoI mean for head to head sports, the bronze medalists won their last match while the silver medalists lost. That would obviously make a big difference in happiness.
- ramoz 5y agoThere are many events where bronze is won after having to compete for it head-to-head (1-on-1 individual events like wrestling, or same for team sports)... so they just won in a situation where a loss meant no medal. They likely had more rounds before where a defeat meant elimination. A lot of psychology probably goes into the backs against the wall scenario. Not only that, 3rd place in typical tournament bracket style is where you might see underdogs rise to the occasion. So third got what they could ultimately achieve, second failed to do so. * I have no idea which sports were analyzed, but as a previous athlete in a few sports the above is something Ive experienced. * Just read the 10 other comments stating the same thing before I did.
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