Are these EA phenomena? Also, are they psychological phenomena?
These things (I guess excluding EA disillusionment), don’t just exist within EA they exist within society in general, so it’s plausibly unfair to call them EA phenomena. Though it also seems to me that for each of these things, there’s somewhat strong fit with EA, and EA culture.
Taking impostor syndrome as an example: EA often particularly values ambitious and talented people. Also, it seems to me there’s something of a culture of assessing and prioritising people on this basis. Insofar as it’s important for people to be successful within EA, it’s also important for people to be seen in a certain way by others (talented, ambitious etc.). In general, the stronger the pressure there is for people to be perceived in a certain way, the more prominent I expect impostor syndrome to be.
(I’m a bit wary of ‘just so’ stories here, but my best guess is that this in fact explanatory).
I think impostor syndrome and other things in this ballpark are often discussed as an individual/ psychological phenomena. I think such framings are pretty useful. And there’s another framing which is seeing it instead as a ~sociological phenomena—these are things which happen in a social context, as a result of different social pressures and incentives within the environment.
I don’t know quite what to conclude here, in a large part because I don’t know how common these things are within EA, and how this compares to other places (or even what the relevant comparison class is). Though tentatively, if I’m asking ‘What does it look like for EA to thrive?’, then part of my answer is ‘being an environment where impostor syndrome, burnout, impact obsession and EA disillusionment are less common’.
I would predict that EA levels of imposter syndrome and burnout are similar to other elite competitive fields (e.g. elite universities and professions) and I’d theorise that levels of ~ competitiveness / pressure are pretty good predictors of levels of ~ imposter syndrome / burnout in different fields. In fact, I’d guess they are probably the best predictors of differences in burnout in different fields[1] except for factors which are selecting for people who are more predisposed towards imposter syndrome / anxiety in general.
Given that, I’d expect there to be some, but limited, capacity for EA to reduce its levels of imposter syndrome and burnout, based on an assumption that we have limited capacity to reduce the overall level of competitiveness in the field. For example, we might think that EA will inevitably be in the top right quadrant of this plot, able only to move up and down a little bit, either by slighly reducing competitiveness/pressure[2] or through changing the limited influence on imposter syndrome/burnout unrelated to competitiveness/pressure.[3]
There is only limited evidence that I’m aware of for this claim. For example, this small study finds a moderately strong correlation between classroom competitiveness and imposter syndrome. But their measures of perceived competitiveness are quite noisy, and include self-reported agreement with statements like “The professor seems to pit students against each other in a competitive manner in this class”, which seem to be of relatively little relevance.
I’m thinking, for example, of increasing the number of secure, desirable EA jobs. But I’m also speculating that a lot of the competitiveness/pressure within EA is endogeneous i.e. many people will just compete for better jobs / more status, and so this would have a relatively modest effect. I don’t have the impression that EA has a particularly competitive culture in the sense of a distinctive culture driving competition, as opposed to high levels of competition arising from EAs largely being very elite, success-oriented go-getting people.
For example, I think there are probably some good ways to improve support in the workplace for these maladies. But I suspect the interventions aren’t very powerful (I’m not aware of any well validated powerful interventions). And I would expect that a lot of the more effective possible interventions are in tension with high levels of competitiveness/pressure in the field, i.e. letting people take long sabbaticals or taking a relaxed stance to people meeting deadlines may be very helpful, but hard to implement or have people take up in a competitive environment.
Conversely, my anecdotal impression is that distinctively EA phenomenon like “impact obsession” are relatively low (fewer than 5% of EAs I know seem to exhibit this to any degree), and my impression is that it may have been more common in the earlier years of EA. My personal impression of the culture of EA is that it does not promote impact obsession very significantly, though that is just personal experience, and my guess is that it is probably concentrated more in particular pockets or networks within the community. Given that supposed lack of pressure from the culture of EA, it seems more driven by individual differences (some people are dramatically more concerned about doing the absolute most good they can and more emotionally affected by it than others), rather than social factors.
Some EA psychological phenomena
Some things that people report in EA:
Impostor Syndrome
Impact obsession
Burnout
EA Disillusionment
Are these EA phenomena? Also, are they psychological phenomena?
These things (I guess excluding EA disillusionment), don’t just exist within EA they exist within society in general, so it’s plausibly unfair to call them EA phenomena. Though it also seems to me that for each of these things, there’s somewhat strong fit with EA, and EA culture.
Taking impostor syndrome as an example: EA often particularly values ambitious and talented people. Also, it seems to me there’s something of a culture of assessing and prioritising people on this basis. Insofar as it’s important for people to be successful within EA, it’s also important for people to be seen in a certain way by others (talented, ambitious etc.). In general, the stronger the pressure there is for people to be perceived in a certain way, the more prominent I expect impostor syndrome to be.
(I’m a bit wary of ‘just so’ stories here, but my best guess is that this in fact explanatory).
I think impostor syndrome and other things in this ballpark are often discussed as an individual/ psychological phenomena. I think such framings are pretty useful. And there’s another framing which is seeing it instead as a ~sociological phenomena—these are things which happen in a social context, as a result of different social pressures and incentives within the environment.
I don’t know quite what to conclude here, in a large part because I don’t know how common these things are within EA, and how this compares to other places (or even what the relevant comparison class is). Though tentatively, if I’m asking ‘What does it look like for EA to thrive?’, then part of my answer is ‘being an environment where impostor syndrome, burnout, impact obsession and EA disillusionment are less common’.
I would predict that EA levels of imposter syndrome and burnout are similar to other elite competitive fields (e.g. elite universities and professions) and I’d theorise that levels of ~ competitiveness / pressure are pretty good predictors of levels of ~ imposter syndrome / burnout in different fields. In fact, I’d guess they are probably the best predictors of differences in burnout in different fields[1] except for factors which are selecting for people who are more predisposed towards imposter syndrome / anxiety in general.
Given that, I’d expect there to be some, but limited, capacity for EA to reduce its levels of imposter syndrome and burnout, based on an assumption that we have limited capacity to reduce the overall level of competitiveness in the field. For example, we might think that EA will inevitably be in the top right quadrant of this plot, able only to move up and down a little bit, either by slighly reducing competitiveness/pressure[2] or through changing the limited influence on imposter syndrome/burnout unrelated to competitiveness/pressure.[3]
There is only limited evidence that I’m aware of for this claim. For example, this small study finds a moderately strong correlation between classroom competitiveness and imposter syndrome. But their measures of perceived competitiveness are quite noisy, and include self-reported agreement with statements like “The professor seems to pit students against each other in a competitive manner in this class”, which seem to be of relatively little relevance.
I’m thinking, for example, of increasing the number of secure, desirable EA jobs. But I’m also speculating that a lot of the competitiveness/pressure within EA is endogeneous i.e. many people will just compete for better jobs / more status, and so this would have a relatively modest effect. I don’t have the impression that EA has a particularly competitive culture in the sense of a distinctive culture driving competition, as opposed to high levels of competition arising from EAs largely being very elite, success-oriented go-getting people.
For example, I think there are probably some good ways to improve support in the workplace for these maladies. But I suspect the interventions aren’t very powerful (I’m not aware of any well validated powerful interventions). And I would expect that a lot of the more effective possible interventions are in tension with high levels of competitiveness/pressure in the field, i.e. letting people take long sabbaticals or taking a relaxed stance to people meeting deadlines may be very helpful, but hard to implement or have people take up in a competitive environment.
Conversely, my anecdotal impression is that distinctively EA phenomenon like “impact obsession” are relatively low (fewer than 5% of EAs I know seem to exhibit this to any degree), and my impression is that it may have been more common in the earlier years of EA. My personal impression of the culture of EA is that it does not promote impact obsession very significantly, though that is just personal experience, and my guess is that it is probably concentrated more in particular pockets or networks within the community. Given that supposed lack of pressure from the culture of EA, it seems more driven by individual differences (some people are dramatically more concerned about doing the absolute most good they can and more emotionally affected by it than others), rather than social factors.
Thanks! (I don’t have an immediate response to this, and found a bunch of the points you’re raising here pretty interesting)