Interesting! Before this study, I thought that EAs had two factors, Effectiveness and Altruism, but I defined Effectiveness differently. I thought it referred to something like “optimization mindset” and “being good at thinking quantitatively and strategically”. This would probably have been a defining characteristic of people in business school.
So I updated my definition of “Effectiveness” in EA. I’d be curious to see more studies about other personality traits!
I think it’s likely that the optimization mindset and numeracy are important proto-EA factors, just one that wasn’t measured here as they’re more difficult to measure through survey questions. Also, holding constant someone’s overall agreement with EA, I’d predict that someone with optimization mindset would have more average impact, and this outcome is more difficult to measure.
Interesting! Before this study, I thought that EAs had two factors, Effectiveness and Altruism, but I defined Effectiveness differently. I thought it referred to something like “optimization mindset” and “being good at thinking quantitatively and strategically”. This would probably have been a defining characteristic of people in business school.
So I updated my definition of “Effectiveness” in EA. I’d be curious to see more studies about other personality traits!
I think it’s likely that the optimization mindset and numeracy are important proto-EA factors, just one that wasn’t measured here as they’re more difficult to measure through survey questions. Also, holding constant someone’s overall agreement with EA, I’d predict that someone with optimization mindset would have more average impact, and this outcome is more difficult to measure.