This is a model I came up with in middle school to explain why it felt like I was treated differently from others even when I acted the same. I invented it long before I fully understood what models were (which only occurred sometime in the last year) and as such it’s something of a “baby’s first model” (ha ha) for me. As you’d expect for something authored by a middle schooler regarding their problems, it places minimal blame on myself. However, even nowadays I think there’s some truth to it.
Here’s the model. Your reputation is a ball on a hill. The valley on one side of the hill corresponds to being revered, and the valley on the other side corresponds to being despised. The ball begins on top of the hill. If you do something that others see as “good” then the ball gets nudged to the good side, and if you do something that others see as “bad” then it gets nudged to the other side.
Here’s where the hill comes in. Once your reputation has been nudged one way or the other, it begins to affect how others interpret your actions. If you apologize for something you did wrong and your reputation is positive, you’re “being the bigger person and owning up to your mistakes”; if you do the same when your reputation is negative, you’re “trying to cover your ass”. Once your action has been interpreted according to your current reputation, it is then fed back into the calculation as an update: the rep/+ person who apologized gets a boost, and the rep/- person who apologized gets shoved down even further.
Hence, “once the ball is sufficiently far down the hill, it begins to roll on its own”. You can take nothing but neutral actions and your reputation will become a more extreme version of what it already is (assuming it was far-from-center to begin with). This applies to positive reputation as well as negative! I have had the experience of my reputation rolling down the positive side of the hill—it was great.
There are also other factors that can affect the starting position of the ball, e.g. if you’re attractive or if somebody gives you a positively-phrased introduction then you start on the positive side, but if you’re ugly or if your current audience has heard bad rumors about you then you start on the negative side.
I’d be curious if anyone else has had this experience and feels this is an accurate model, and I’d be very curious if anyone thinks there is a significant hole in it.
This very much matches my own model. Once you are high or low status, it’s self reinforcing and people will interpret the evidence to support the existing story, which is why when you are high you can play low and you won’t lose status (you’re just “slumming it” or something similar) and when you are low you can play high and will not gain any status (you’re “reaching above your station).
We used to talk about a “halo effect” here (and sometimes, “negative halo effect”), I like this way of describing it.
I think it might be more valuable to just prefer to use a general model of confirmation bias though. People find whatever they’re looking for. They only find the truth if they’re really really looking for the truth, whatever it’s going to be, and nothing else, and most people aren’t, and that captures most of what is happening.
as such it’s something of a “baby’s first model” (ha ha) for me. As you’d expect for something authored by a middle schooler regarding their problems, it places minimal blame on myself.
Heh, I like this sentence a lot (both for being funny, sort of adorable, and also just actually being a useful epistemic status)
This model certainly seems relevant, but should probably be properly seen as one particular lens, or a facet of a much more complicated equation. (In particular, people can have different kinds of reputation in different domains)
(In particular, people can have different kinds of reputation in different domains)
That’s true. I didn’t notice this as I was writing, but my entire post frames “reputation” as being representable as a number. I think this might have been more or less true for the situations I had in mind, all of which were non-work social groups with no particular aim.
Here’s another thought. For other types of reputations that can still be modeled as a ball on a hill, it might be useful to parameterize the slope on each side of the hill.
“Social reputation” (the vague stuff that I think I was perceiving in the situations that inspired this model) is one where the rep/+ side is pretty shallow, but the rep/- side is pretty steep. It’s not too hard to screw up and lose a good standing — in particular, if the social group gets it in their head they you were “faking it” and that you’re “not actually a good/kind/confident/funny person” — but once you’re down the well, it’s very hard to climb out.
“Academic reputation”, on the other hand, seems like it might be the reverse. I can imagine that if someone is considered a genius, and then they miss the mark on a few problems in a row, it wouldn’t do much to their standing, whereas if the local idiot suddenly pops out and solves an outstanding problem, everyone might change their minds about them. (This is based on minimal experience.)
Of course, it also depends on the group.
I’m curious — do you have any types of reputation in mind that you wouldn’t model like this, or any particular extra parts that you would add to it?
The ball-on-a-hill model of reputation
This is a model I came up with in middle school to explain why it felt like I was treated differently from others even when I acted the same. I invented it long before I fully understood what models were (which only occurred sometime in the last year) and as such it’s something of a “baby’s first model” (ha ha) for me. As you’d expect for something authored by a middle schooler regarding their problems, it places minimal blame on myself. However, even nowadays I think there’s some truth to it.
Here’s the model. Your reputation is a ball on a hill. The valley on one side of the hill corresponds to being revered, and the valley on the other side corresponds to being despised. The ball begins on top of the hill. If you do something that others see as “good” then the ball gets nudged to the good side, and if you do something that others see as “bad” then it gets nudged to the other side.
Here’s where the hill comes in. Once your reputation has been nudged one way or the other, it begins to affect how others interpret your actions. If you apologize for something you did wrong and your reputation is positive, you’re “being the bigger person and owning up to your mistakes”; if you do the same when your reputation is negative, you’re “trying to cover your ass”. Once your action has been interpreted according to your current reputation, it is then fed back into the calculation as an update: the rep/+ person who apologized gets a boost, and the rep/- person who apologized gets shoved down even further.
Hence, “once the ball is sufficiently far down the hill, it begins to roll on its own”. You can take nothing but neutral actions and your reputation will become a more extreme version of what it already is (assuming it was far-from-center to begin with). This applies to positive reputation as well as negative! I have had the experience of my reputation rolling down the positive side of the hill—it was great.
There are also other factors that can affect the starting position of the ball, e.g. if you’re attractive or if somebody gives you a positively-phrased introduction then you start on the positive side, but if you’re ugly or if your current audience has heard bad rumors about you then you start on the negative side.
I’d be curious if anyone else has had this experience and feels this is an accurate model, and I’d be very curious if anyone thinks there is a significant hole in it.
This very much matches my own model. Once you are high or low status, it’s self reinforcing and people will interpret the evidence to support the existing story, which is why when you are high you can play low and you won’t lose status (you’re just “slumming it” or something similar) and when you are low you can play high and will not gain any status (you’re “reaching above your station).
We used to talk about a “halo effect” here (and sometimes, “negative halo effect”), I like this way of describing it.
I think it might be more valuable to just prefer to use a general model of confirmation bias though. People find whatever they’re looking for. They only find the truth if they’re really really looking for the truth, whatever it’s going to be, and nothing else, and most people aren’t, and that captures most of what is happening.
Heh, I like this sentence a lot (both for being funny, sort of adorable, and also just actually being a useful epistemic status)
This model certainly seems relevant, but should probably be properly seen as one particular lens, or a facet of a much more complicated equation. (In particular, people can have different kinds of reputation in different domains)
That’s true. I didn’t notice this as I was writing, but my entire post frames “reputation” as being representable as a number. I think this might have been more or less true for the situations I had in mind, all of which were non-work social groups with no particular aim.
Here’s another thought. For other types of reputations that can still be modeled as a ball on a hill, it might be useful to parameterize the slope on each side of the hill.
“Social reputation” (the vague stuff that I think I was perceiving in the situations that inspired this model) is one where the rep/+ side is pretty shallow, but the rep/- side is pretty steep. It’s not too hard to screw up and lose a good standing — in particular, if the social group gets it in their head they you were “faking it” and that you’re “not actually a good/kind/confident/funny person” — but once you’re down the well, it’s very hard to climb out.
“Academic reputation”, on the other hand, seems like it might be the reverse. I can imagine that if someone is considered a genius, and then they miss the mark on a few problems in a row, it wouldn’t do much to their standing, whereas if the local idiot suddenly pops out and solves an outstanding problem, everyone might change their minds about them. (This is based on minimal experience.)
Of course, it also depends on the group.
I’m curious — do you have any types of reputation in mind that you wouldn’t model like this, or any particular extra parts that you would add to it?