One question is to what extent truel situations produce mere underconfidence, versus actual mediocrity? As Johnnicholas aptly describes it, “fear of success” would be more a sign of underconfidence, while “choking under pressure” would produce mediocre performance. There is plenty of mediocrity in the world, but is it because of truels, or because everyone is trying as hard as they can to excel, but by definition only a few can rise above the crowd?
We have long discussed evolutionary situations where overconfidence is a benefit, so here we have a set of cases where underconfidence is good. This is a problem with evolutionary psychology, it is too easy to come up with theories that can explain anything. Whatever ratios we observe of overconfidence to underconfidence, we can explain them by postulating that the evolutionary environment had the corresponding ratios of scenarios where one or the other behavior would be of benefit.
The test would come if we could derive a prediction from this explanation which is non-obvious, and then we could see if underconfidence aligned with that prediction.
There is only a conflict between the predictions (“overconfidence is a benefit” and “underconfidence is a benefit”), if the evolutionary situations are indistinguishable.
If the organism can distinguish the different kinds of games, we may have a single, nuanced prediction; it will be overconfident in these situations and underconfident in these other situations.
I’m not recalling the structure of the ev. psych. / game theory examples that predict overconfidence. Could someone remind me or point me?
One question is to what extent truel situations produce mere underconfidence, versus actual mediocrity? As Johnnicholas aptly describes it, “fear of success” would be more a sign of underconfidence, while “choking under pressure” would produce mediocre performance. There is plenty of mediocrity in the world, but is it because of truels, or because everyone is trying as hard as they can to excel, but by definition only a few can rise above the crowd?
We have long discussed evolutionary situations where overconfidence is a benefit, so here we have a set of cases where underconfidence is good. This is a problem with evolutionary psychology, it is too easy to come up with theories that can explain anything. Whatever ratios we observe of overconfidence to underconfidence, we can explain them by postulating that the evolutionary environment had the corresponding ratios of scenarios where one or the other behavior would be of benefit.
The test would come if we could derive a prediction from this explanation which is non-obvious, and then we could see if underconfidence aligned with that prediction.
There is only a conflict between the predictions (“overconfidence is a benefit” and “underconfidence is a benefit”), if the evolutionary situations are indistinguishable.
If the organism can distinguish the different kinds of games, we may have a single, nuanced prediction; it will be overconfident in these situations and underconfident in these other situations.
I’m not recalling the structure of the ev. psych. / game theory examples that predict overconfidence. Could someone remind me or point me?