Not sure if I understand the text correctly, but the reasoning seams off to me. Eg.
Expected value calculations don’t seem to faithfully represent a person’s internal sense of conviction that an outcome occurs. Or else opportunities with small chances of success would not attract people.
Isn’t the exact opposite true? Don’t opportunities with small chances of success still attract people exactly because of (subconscious) expected value value calculations?
Thank you for your comment. I think that in some cases, subconscious calculations of expected value motivate actions.
But I don’t think that expected value calculations faithfully (reliably or consistently) represent a person’s degree of conviction (or confidence) that an outcome occurs given the person’s actions.
In particular, I suggest alternatives at work when people claim that their decision is to choose an expected value of very low probability and very high value:
that those people would have fun during the pursuit and so choose the pursuit of the outcome
that those people have a hidden (benign) agenda behind their pursuit of the outcome
that those people have an idea of what they could (dubiously) achieve that seems real and therefore, somehow, likely, or even certain.
What I don’t think they have is a strong expectation that they will fail. We are not wired to meaningfully pursue outcomes that we believe, really believe, will not occur. What they should have, if their probability estimate of success gets really low, is a true expectation that their efforts will fail. In some cases they don’t have that expectation because subconsciously they have a simple, clear, and vivid idea of that unlikely outcome. They pursue it even though the pursuit is high cost and the outcome is virtually impossible.
Not sure if I understand the text correctly, but the reasoning seams off to me. Eg.
Isn’t the exact opposite true? Don’t opportunities with small chances of success still attract people exactly because of (subconscious) expected value value calculations?
Thank you for your comment. I think that in some cases, subconscious calculations of expected value motivate actions.
But I don’t think that expected value calculations faithfully (reliably or consistently) represent a person’s degree of conviction (or confidence) that an outcome occurs given the person’s actions.
In particular, I suggest alternatives at work when people claim that their decision is to choose an expected value of very low probability and very high value:
that those people would have fun during the pursuit and so choose the pursuit of the outcome
that those people have a hidden (benign) agenda behind their pursuit of the outcome
that those people have an idea of what they could (dubiously) achieve that seems real and therefore, somehow, likely, or even certain.
What I don’t think they have is a strong expectation that they will fail. We are not wired to meaningfully pursue outcomes that we believe, really believe, will not occur. What they should have, if their probability estimate of success gets really low, is a true expectation that their efforts will fail. In some cases they don’t have that expectation because subconsciously they have a simple, clear, and vivid idea of that unlikely outcome. They pursue it even though the pursuit is high cost and the outcome is virtually impossible.