September 5th

Want to know something crazy scary? The human condition is such that, by chance alone, we are most often rewarded for punishing others, and most often punished for rewarding them. Can you believe that? Do you believe it? A true warrior wants to understand this. Regression fallacy causes you to apportion blame when none exists, for example if a student does poorly this semester, he is punished by those about him, teaches, coaches, siblings and parents. Next semester the student’s performance improves, so clearly punishment works right? Probably not. It is far more likely that whatever elements were holding that student back are now simply failing to do so. When someone does an exceptional job or performance in the current cycle, we reward them. In the next cycle, a more normal performance is produced and how do we take that? We think that there is no benefit from giving rewards. On the contrary, rewards are obviously counterproductive! These results are better explained by the concept of regression to the mean.

Just what does regression to the mean mean? In this context, mean is the average in (or of) any sort of population, like the average bank balance of the middle-class population, or the average height of professional basketball players. Regression to the mean, is the natural tendency for people/things/events and performances to revert to the average, rather than rising above it. So why is this important?

This true warrior wants to know how you rank yourself. So do so now … by filling in the blanks:

-On the human scale, where do you rate or rank yourself? With one hundred being the highest rating possible, what do you believe your score is compared to the rest of the world?___________________

-Based on all attributes, on what percentile of humanity would you place yourself? ______________________________________

Write down your answer, and do so before you read on.

The true warrior knows that we encounter many instances of regression toward the mean in the normal course of life. For example, within families, it can be seen in relation to the height of fathers and sons, or individual performances on consecutive evaluations/examinations.

What was your answer to your ranking? I bet it was in the top 25 per cent—75 of 100 or better! Would it surprise you to learn that everyone (100 per cent of the population) in the world self-ranks in the top 50 per cent of the world’s population?

The true warrior wants to know how we all can be better than everyone else? Self-deception is at work once again. This is important to pay attention to, as the true warrior needs to understand the truth in every decision-making situation, and needs to allow for this type of overestimation and self-aggrandizement. Who likes to admit defeat? Who is truly going to rank themselves realistically? Is it even possible? And just what the heck does this have to do with punishment and reward?

Daniel Kahneman’s most excellent book, Thinking, Fast and Slow1, has been his life’s work, and takes a look at physiological bias in decision making and life experiences. On pages 420 and 421, we see that flight instructors believe the empirical evidence before their eyes, which proves to them that “punishment is more effective than reward”:

“The failure to recognize the import of regression can have pernicious consequences, as illustrated by the following observation. In a discussion of flight training, experienced instructors noted that praise for an exceptionally smooth landing is typically followed by a poorer landing on the next try, while harsh criticism after a rough landing is usually followed by an improvement on the next try. The instructors concluded that verbal punishments are beneficial, contrary to accepted psychological doctrine. This conclusion is unwarranted because of the presence of regression toward the mean. As in other cases of repeated examination, an improvement will usually follow a poor performance, even if the instructor does not respond to the trainee’s achievement on the first attempt. Because the instructors had praised their trainees achievement on the first attempt. Because the instructors had praised their trainees after good landings and admonished them after poor ones, they reached the erroneous and potentially harmful conclusion that punishment is more effective than reward.”

Have you ever witnessed this or seen it in action? Unfortunately, we tend to forget completely about the concept of regression to the mean—assuming we are even aware of it. Exceptional performance in either direction is not the norm; it is the exception, so we shouldn’t get too excited about it. The true warrior wants you do everything you can do to raise the mean, instead of expecting extraordinary performance that is beyond it. Why do we lose sight of this concept?
Kahneman explains:

“Nevertheless, people do not develop correct intuitions about this phenomenon. First they do not expect regression to exist in many contexts where it is bound to occur. Second, when they recognize the occurrence of regression, they often invent spurious causal explanations for it. We suggest that the phenomenon of regression remains elusive because it is incompatible with the belief that the predicted outcome should be maximally representative of the input, and hence, that the value of the outcome variable should be as extreme as the value of the input variable.”

Do you see the magic word at work in this explanation? The magic word is belief. Here it is again, messing with reality. Belief can cause us great problems or help us achieve great results. True warriors understand how belief works to their advantage. They know that certain beliefs will keep a prospect blind. When presenting information, it is best to take advantage of this human predisposition. This is why marketing is all about perception in the mind of the prospect. Those perceptions are their beliefs, and can be propagated by peers, by casual comments, by authority sources, by referrals, by gossip, and by reading about it on the internet! Heck, it must be true. We are social. We want to be liked. We want to belong, and we crave security and safety. We willingly suspend reality in order to adopt a belief that satisfies our cravings.

We overestimate good outcomes and underestimate bad outcomes. We can’t help it.

You are warriors, and you will remember this. You will learn to incorporate these lessons into your winning mind. You are warriors and you are in the top one per cent. You are warriors, and you are rated accurately at 99 out of 100, or higher. You believe this. You practice this. You will demonstrate this! So it has been written.

1. Kahneman, Daniel. Thinking, Fast and Slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 2011. eBook.