The Psychology of Human Misjudgment — Revisited

Talk Eleven Revisited    In this talk, made in 2000, I gave favorable mention to Judith Rich Harris strong-selling book The Nurture Assumption. You will recall that this work  demonstrated that peer pressure on the young is far more important, and  parental nurture is much less important, than had been commonly recognized. The success of the book, with its vast practical implications, has an interesting story behind it: Long before the book was published, Ms. Harris, now 67, was kicked out  of Harvard's PhD. program in psychology because Harvard believed that she lacked  qualities ideal in psychological research. Then, later, out of illness and obscurit_v, as she was pretty much housebound throughout adult life by unfixable autoimmune 

disease, she published an academic paper on which her subsequent book was based.  And for that paper she won a prestigious medal, named after the man who signed  her dismissal notice from Harvard, awarded annually by the American Psychological  Association for distinction in published writing.    When I learned from her impressive book that this ironic result had occurred, I wrote to Harvard, my alma mater, urging it to award Ms. Harris, whom I did not know, an honorary PhD., or, better yet, a real Ph. D. I cited the example of Oxford. That great university once allowed its best student, Samuel Johnson, to leave without a degree because he was too poor to continue paying tuition. But Oxford later made gracious amends. It gave Johnson a doctorate after he conquered sickness and became famous in a tough climb once described in his own words: "Slow rises worth, by poverty oppressed." I failed utterly in my effort to convince Harvard to imitate Oxford in this way. But Harvard did later recruit from MIT one of the most famous living psychology professors, Steven Pinker, and Pinker is a big admirer of Ms. Harris. From this step, we can see one reason why its liberal arts division is more highly regarded than most others. The division's extreme depth often allows partial correction of bonehead errors that would flourish unopposed elsewhere.    Judith Rich Harris (b. 1938) 

Judith Rich Harris is an independent investigator and author. Her significant professional accomplishments include a mathematical model of visual speech, textbooks in developmental psychology, and many influential professional articles. She is best known for The Nurture Assumption (1998) and No Two Alike (2000). Ms. Harris lives with her husband. In 2006, Ms. Harris, struggling further through her unfixable illness, published another book, No Two Alike. The title is apt because one central question the author assaults is why identical twins turn out to be so different in important aspects of personality. Her dogged curiosity and rigor in dealing with this question remind me of both Darwin and Sherlock Holmes, and her solution is very plausible as she collects and explains data from professional literature — including an interesting case wherein one of two identical twins became a success in business and family life while the other twin went to Skid Row.

I won't here disclose Ms. Harris's desirably generalized answer to her central question, because it would be better for ultimate readers to first guess the answer, then read her book. If Ms. Harris is roughly right — which seems very likely to me — she will have twice, from a very handicapped position, produced academic insights of great practical importance in child rearing, education, and much else.

How could this rare and desirable result happen? Well, by Ms. Harris's own account, she was impertinent and skeptical even as a child. And these qualities, plus patient, determined skill, have obviously served her truth-seeking well, all the way through to age 67. No doubt she was also assisted by her enthusiasm in destroying her own ideas, as she now demonstrates by apologizing for her former work as a textbook writer who repeated wrong notions now outgrown.

In this talk I displayed some impertinency of my own by delivering an extreme-sounding message. It claims nothing less than (1) that academic psychology is hugely important, (2) that even so it is usually ill-thought-out and ill-presented by its Ph.D. denizens, and (3) that my way of presenting psychology often has a large superiority in practical utility compared to most textbooks. Naturally, I believe these extreme claims are correct. After all, I assembled the material contained in this talk to help me succeed in practical thinking, and not to gain advantage by making public any would-be-clever notions.

If I am partly right, the world will eventually see more psychology in roughly the form of this talk. If so, I confidently predict that the change in practice will improve general competency.    Charlie Munger's Recommended Books    "In my whole life, I have known no wise people (over a broad subject matter area)  who didn't read all the time-none, zero. You'd be amazed at how much Warren  reads-and at how much I read. My children laugh at me. They think I'm a book  with a couple of legs sticking out."    Deep Simplicity: Bringing Order to Chaos and Complexity John Gribbin, Random House (2005) 

F.F.I.A.S.C.O.: The Inside Story of a Wall Street Trader Frank Partnoy, Penguin Books (1999)    Ice Age John & Mary Gribbin, Barnes & Noble (2002)    How the Scots Invented the Modern World: The True Story of How Western Europe's Poorest Nation Created Our World & Everything in It Arthur Herman, Three Rivers Press (2002)    Models of My Life Herbert A. Simon The MIT Press (1996)    A Matter of Degrees: What Temperature Reveals About the Past and Future of Our Species, Planet, and Universe Gino Segre, Viking Books (2002)    Andrew Carnegie Joseph Frazier Wall, Oxford University Press (1970)    Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies Jared M. Diamond, W. W. Norton & Company   The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal Jared M. Diamond, Perennial (1992)    Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion Robert B. Cialdini, Perennial Currents (1998) 

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin Benjamin Franklin, Yale Nota Bene (2003)    Living Within Limits: Ecology, Economics, and Population Taboos Garrett Hardin, Oxford University Press (1995)    The Selfish Gene Richard Dawkins, Oxford University Press (1990)    Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller Sr. Ron Chernow, Vintage (2004)    The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor David S. Landes, W. W. Norton & Company (1998)    The Warren Buffett Portfolio: Mastering the Power of the Focus Investment Strategist Robert G. Hagstrom, Wiley (2000)    Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters Matt Ridley, Harper Collins Publishers (2000)    Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In Roger Fisher, William, and Bruce Patton, Penguin Books    Three Scientists and Their Gods: Looking for Meaning in an Age of Information Robert Wright, Harper Collins Publishers (1989)    Only the Paranoid Survive Andy Grove, Currency (1996) 

And a few from your editor...    Les Schwab: Pride in Performance Les Schwab, Pacific Northwest Books (1986)    Men and Rubber: The Story of Business Harvey S. Firestone, Kessinger Publishing (2003)    Men to Match My Mountains: The Opening of the Far West, 1840-1900 Irving Stone, Book Sales (2001)    One Final I have Nothing to Add…    We conclude with this final question:    Question: "In your Harvard speech on 'The Psychology of Human Misjudgment,' you mention  the strange case of the Latin American country  where some very clever reformers used psychology,  not economic remedies, to fix an enormously corrupt  market system. Can you tell us what country that was and provide more details?"    Answer: "Oh, yes-I ran across that fascinating story not in an Economics book, but in a Psychology paper. I could dig it out of my files for you, but

it's too much effort, so I won't."    Editor's note: Sometimes we remain in the dark.…    “A word to the wise is enough” - Poor Richard    The model for Poor Charlie's Almanack is, of course, Ben Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanac. Franklin, as many know, was a polymath. Born in Boston and a leader of the American Revolution, he was a journalist, publisher, author, philanthropist, abolitionist, public servant, scientist, librarian, diplomat, and inventor. Using the pseudonym of "Poor Richard," Franklin published his Almanach from 1733 to 1758. Its content varied, including not only many Franklin aphorisms that became famous but also calendars, weather forecasts, astronomical information, and astrological data. The Almanac was hugely popular in the American colonies, selling about 10,000 copies per year.  Poor Richard's maxims ranged widely in topic and were typically laced with humor. Some samples include:  "No nation was ever ruined by trade."  "Drive the Business, or it will drive thee."  "He that falls in love with himself will have no rivals."  "Where there's Marriage without Love, there will be Love without Marriage. "  "Necessity never made a good bargain."  "Three may keep a secret, but two of them are dead."  "There is no little enemy." 

"It's difficult for an empty sack to stand upright."