A Little More Humility

Philipp Strack

Yale Professor of Computer Science and Economics Philipp Strack on his research into prejudice: [bold added]

Recently I’ve been researching how to explain prejudice in society. In a working paper with Paul Heidhues and Botond Köszegi, we explore the idea that overestimating yourself can generate prejudice. Suppose I think I’m great, even though I’m not; when I look at my outcomes in life, I am unhappy and think I deserve more. To explain why I’m not receiving what I think I deserve, I may believe there is discrimination against me. This leads me to overestimate discrimination against the groups I’m a member of, while underestimating discrimination against groups with which I compete.

This can create prejudice and specific patterns in people’s beliefs. For example, if you ask Black and white people which group is discriminated against, there are huge gaps between the perception of different groups. The same is true for men and women. But standard theories of discrimination — that people discriminate because they don’t like certain groups, or believe them to be less qualified — don’t predict these large differences in beliefs about discrimination across groups.

While there have been voluminous studies on discrimination and prejudice, this is the first time I have read about research into how an individual's mis-apprehension--specifically he thinks he is better than he is--of his own abilities exacerbates prejudice against other groups.

A little more humility is in order, not only from an ethical and philosophical standpoint, but because it will lessen intergroup conflict.