we found a relatively weak correlation between what we call “expansive altruism” (willingness to give resources to others, including distant others) and “effectiveness-focus” (willingness to choose the most effective ways of helping others)
I don’t think we can infer too much from this result about this question.
The first thing to note, as observed here, is that taken at face value, a correlation of around 0.243 is decently large, both relative to other effect sizes in personality psychology and in absolute terms.
However, more broadly, measures that have been constructed in this way probably shouldn’t be used to make claims about the relationships between psychological constructs (either which constructs are associated with EA or how constructs are related to each other).
This is because the ‘expansive altruism’ and ‘effectiveness-focus’ measures were constructed, in part, by selecting items which most strongly predict your EA outcome measures (interest in EA etc.). Items selected to optimise prediction are unlikely to provide unbiased measurement (for a demonstration, see Smits et al (2018)). The items can predict well both because they are highly valid and because they introduce endogeneity, and there is no way to tell the difference just by observing predictive power.
This limits the extent to which we can conclude that psychological constructs (expansive altruism and effectiveness-focus) are associated with attitudes towards effective altruism, rather than just that the measures (“expansive altruism” and “effectiveness-focus”) are associated with effective altruism, because the items are selected to predict those measures.
So, in this case, it’s hard to tell whether the correlation between ‘expansive altruism’ and ‘effectiveness focus’ is inflated (e.g. because both measures share a correlation with effective altruism or some other construct) or attenuated (e.g. because the measures less reliably measure the constructs of interest).
Interestingly, Lucius’ measure of ‘impartial beneficence’ from the OUS (which seems conceptually very similar to ‘expansive altruism), is even more strongly correlated with ‘effectiveness-focus’ (at 0.39 [0.244-0.537], in a CFA model in which the two OUS factors, expansive altruism, and effectiveness-focus are allowed to correlate at the latent level). This is compatible with there being a stronger association between the relevant kind of expansive/impartial altruism and effectiveness (although the same limitations described above apply to the ‘effectiveness-focus measure’).
“More generally, I think what underlies these ideas of using lower salaries as a costly signal of value-alignment is the tacit assumption that value-alignment is a relatively cohesive, unidimensional trait. But I think that assumption isn’t quite right—as stated, our factor analyses rather suggested there are two core psychological traits defining positive inclinations to effective altruism (expansive altruism and effectiveness-focus), which aren’t that strongly related. (And I wouldn’t be surprised if we found further sub-facets if we did more extensive research on this.)”
I agree with the last sentence of this—there are probably at least as many sub-facets as there are distinct tenets of effective altruism, and only most or all of them coming together in the same person is sufficient for making someone aligned. Two facets is too few, and, echoing David, I do not think that the effectiveness-focus and expansive altruism measures are valid measures of actual psychological constructs (though these constructs may nevertheless exist). My view is that these measures should only be used for prediction, or reconstructed from scratch.
I am less sure the final part of the following:
“I think it’s better for EA recruiters to try to gauge, e.g. inclinations towards cause-neutrality, willingness to overcome motivated reasoning, and other important effective altruist traits, directly, rather than to try to infer them via their willingness to accept a lower salary—since those inferences will typically not have a high degree of accuracy.”
This depends, I think, on how difficult it is to ape effective altruism. As effective altruism becomes more popular and more materials are available to figure out the sorts of things walking-talking EAs say and think, I would speculate that aping effective altruism becomes easier. In this case, if you care about selecting for alignment, a willingness to take on a lower salary could be an important independent source of complimentary evidence.
I don’t think we can infer too much from this result about this question.
The first thing to note, as observed here, is that taken at face value, a correlation of around 0.243 is decently large, both relative to other effect sizes in personality psychology and in absolute terms.
However, more broadly, measures that have been constructed in this way probably shouldn’t be used to make claims about the relationships between psychological constructs (either which constructs are associated with EA or how constructs are related to each other).
This is because the ‘expansive altruism’ and ‘effectiveness-focus’ measures were constructed, in part, by selecting items which most strongly predict your EA outcome measures (interest in EA etc.). Items selected to optimise prediction are unlikely to provide unbiased measurement (for a demonstration, see Smits et al (2018)). The items can predict well both because they are highly valid and because they introduce endogeneity, and there is no way to tell the difference just by observing predictive power.
This limits the extent to which we can conclude that psychological constructs (expansive altruism and effectiveness-focus) are associated with attitudes towards effective altruism, rather than just that the measures (“expansive altruism” and “effectiveness-focus”) are associated with effective altruism, because the items are selected to predict those measures.
So, in this case, it’s hard to tell whether the correlation between ‘expansive altruism’ and ‘effectiveness focus’ is inflated (e.g. because both measures share a correlation with effective altruism or some other construct) or attenuated (e.g. because the measures less reliably measure the constructs of interest).
Interestingly, Lucius’ measure of ‘impartial beneficence’ from the OUS (which seems conceptually very similar to ‘expansive altruism), is even more strongly correlated with ‘effectiveness-focus’ (at 0.39 [0.244-0.537], in a CFA model in which the two OUS factors, expansive altruism, and effectiveness-focus are allowed to correlate at the latent level). This is compatible with there being a stronger association between the relevant kind of expansive/impartial altruism and effectiveness (although the same limitations described above apply to the ‘effectiveness-focus measure’).
“More generally, I think what underlies these ideas of using lower salaries as a costly signal of value-alignment is the tacit assumption that value-alignment is a relatively cohesive, unidimensional trait. But I think that assumption isn’t quite right—as stated, our factor analyses rather suggested there are two core psychological traits defining positive inclinations to effective altruism (expansive altruism and effectiveness-focus), which aren’t that strongly related. (And I wouldn’t be surprised if we found further sub-facets if we did more extensive research on this.)”
I agree with the last sentence of this—there are probably at least as many sub-facets as there are distinct tenets of effective altruism, and only most or all of them coming together in the same person is sufficient for making someone aligned. Two facets is too few, and, echoing David, I do not think that the effectiveness-focus and expansive altruism measures are valid measures of actual psychological constructs (though these constructs may nevertheless exist). My view is that these measures should only be used for prediction, or reconstructed from scratch.
I am less sure the final part of the following:
“I think it’s better for EA recruiters to try to gauge, e.g. inclinations towards cause-neutrality, willingness to overcome motivated reasoning, and other important effective altruist traits, directly, rather than to try to infer them via their willingness to accept a lower salary—since those inferences will typically not have a high degree of accuracy.”
This depends, I think, on how difficult it is to ape effective altruism. As effective altruism becomes more popular and more materials are available to figure out the sorts of things walking-talking EAs say and think, I would speculate that aping effective altruism becomes easier. In this case, if you care about selecting for alignment, a willingness to take on a lower salary could be an important independent source of complimentary evidence.