Success stories cause false beliefs about success
Many popular books and articles that purport to explain how people, companies, or ideas succeed highlight a few successes chosen to fit a particular narrative. We investigate what effect these highly selected “success narratives” have on readers' beliefs and decisions. We conducted a large, ran...
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Society for Judgment and Decision Making
2021
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oai:doaj.org-article:9fe8d8a1a036491eb9fb8e58e38022272021-11-29T22:45:18ZSuccess stories cause false beliefs about success1930-2975https://doaj.org/article/9fe8d8a1a036491eb9fb8e58e38022272021-11-01T00:00:00Zhttp://journal.sjdm.org/21/210225/jdm210225.pdfhttps://doaj.org/toc/1930-2975Many popular books and articles that purport to explain how people, companies, or ideas succeed highlight a few successes chosen to fit a particular narrative. We investigate what effect these highly selected “success narratives” have on readers' beliefs and decisions. We conducted a large, randomized, pre-registered experiment, showing participants successful firms with founders that all either dropped out of or graduated college, and asked them to make incentive-compatible bets on a new firm. Despite acknowledging biases in the examples, participants' decisions were very strongly influenced by them. People shown dropout founders were 55 percentage points more likely to bet on a dropout-founded company than people who were shown graduate founders. Most reported medium to high confidence in their bets, and many wrote causal explanations justifying their decision. In light of recent concerns about false information, our findings demonstrate how true but biased information can strongly alter beliefs and decisions.George LifchitsAshton AndersonDaniel G. GoldsteinJake M. HofmanDuncan J. WattsSociety for Judgment and Decision Makingarticlecommunication selection bias decision-makingnakeywordsSocial SciencesHPsychologyBF1-990ENJudgment and Decision Making, Vol 16, Iss 6, Pp 1439-1463 (2021) |
| institution |
DOAJ |
| collection |
DOAJ |
| language |
EN |
| topic |
communication selection bias decision-makingnakeywords Social Sciences H Psychology BF1-990 |
| spellingShingle |
communication selection bias decision-makingnakeywords Social Sciences H Psychology BF1-990 George Lifchits Ashton Anderson Daniel G. Goldstein Jake M. Hofman Duncan J. Watts Success stories cause false beliefs about success |
| description |
Many popular books and
articles that purport to explain how people, companies, or ideas succeed
highlight a few successes chosen to fit a particular narrative. We investigate
what effect these highly selected “success narratives” have on readers' beliefs
and decisions. We conducted a large, randomized, pre-registered experiment,
showing participants successful firms with founders that all either dropped out
of or graduated college, and asked them to make incentive-compatible bets on a
new firm. Despite acknowledging biases in the examples, participants' decisions
were very strongly influenced by them. People shown dropout founders were 55
percentage points more likely to bet on a dropout-founded company than people
who were shown graduate founders. Most reported medium to high confidence in
their bets, and many wrote causal explanations justifying their decision. In
light of recent concerns about false information, our findings demonstrate how
true but biased information can strongly alter beliefs and
decisions. |
| format |
article |
| author |
George Lifchits Ashton Anderson Daniel G. Goldstein Jake M. Hofman Duncan J. Watts |
| author_facet |
George Lifchits Ashton Anderson Daniel G. Goldstein Jake M. Hofman Duncan J. Watts |
| author_sort |
George Lifchits |
| title |
Success stories
cause false beliefs about success |
| title_short |
Success stories
cause false beliefs about success |
| title_full |
Success stories
cause false beliefs about success |
| title_fullStr |
Success stories
cause false beliefs about success |
| title_full_unstemmed |
Success stories
cause false beliefs about success |
| title_sort |
success stories
cause false beliefs about success |
| publisher |
Society for Judgment and Decision Making |
| publishDate |
2021 |
| url |
https://doaj.org/article/9fe8d8a1a036491eb9fb8e58e3802227 |
| work_keys_str_mv |
AT georgelifchits successstoriescausefalsebeliefsaboutsuccess AT ashtonanderson successstoriescausefalsebeliefsaboutsuccess AT danielggoldstein successstoriescausefalsebeliefsaboutsuccess AT jakemhofman successstoriescausefalsebeliefsaboutsuccess AT duncanjwatts successstoriescausefalsebeliefsaboutsuccess |
| _version_ |
1718406879768477696 |