When living at home, things like this, do you ever feel familiar:
When the researchers asked husbands and wives what percentage of the housework they each took on, the wives would say, "Are you kidding?" I took on almost all the housework, at least 90%. Husbands will say, "Actually, I do a lot, about 40 percent." "Although the specific numbers are different for different couples, the sum will be significantly more than 100%. This tempts people to infer that at least one of these couples is lying, but it's more likely that each one makes memories in their favor. - "The Fault Is Not In Me"
Even the most lazy husband will think: I have done a little bit... 20%？ 30%？
When the collaborators have achieved success together, how to discuss the merits and rewards among the members has become a non-sloppy matter. If the contribution is not well distributed, it may cause everyone to disperse unhappily, and there are often cases in academic circles that compete for honors and eventually close comrades-in-arms are also divided.
For example, Frederick Banting and John Macleod, who won the 1923 Nobel Prize in Physiology for their discovery of insulin, each elevated their contribution after winning the prize, claiming that Macleod only provided laboratories and equipment without any substantial help for the experiment; and McLeod did not mention Banting's name at all when talking about the initial inspiration in his speech.
Banting (left) with McLeod | Library & Archives Canada/U of Toronto
Not only that, but in 1962, Lee Jeong-do and Yang Zhenning also parted ways over the order of their early papers and the dispute over which contribution to the "cosmic name is not conserved" theory. The series of disputes surrounding artemisinin and Tu Youyou are even more recent events that have occurred around us.
The phenomenon that members of such groups tend to overestimate their contributions to the team has long been defined in psychology and is called over-claiming credit.
In this phenomenon, collaborators tend to be in a state of "authority fandom", believing that their assessment of merit is true, but in fact exaggerating their contribution. If each collaborator is required to evaluate their contribution as a percentage, the sum will usually exceed 100%, reaching about 120% to 140%.
Exaggerated contributions are not only found in Nobel laureates, in fact, where there is a team, there are exaggerated contributions. Recently, Nicholas Epley, a star professor at the University of Chicago Business School, joined his colleagues in poaching exaggerated contributions among authors, MBA students, and visitors. What's more, they found for the first time that group size also affects the extent to which contributions are exaggerated: the larger the group (the more collaborators) the more common it is to exaggerate contributions. Their research was published in the journal Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied.
This paper, my contribution is great!
As early as a decade ago, Epley et al. sent research questionnaires on a large scale to authors of papers in the top organizational behavior journals at the time. A total of 41 percent of authors responded to the survey, with some only needing to assess their own contribution to their published papers, while the others had to evaluate the contributions of other collaborators before they could evaluate their own contributions.
Wherever there is a team, there is an exaggeration of contribution (resulting in discord), and cartoons are no exception|tvseriesfinale.com
Ten years later, Epley has reanalyzed the data it received. On average, as the number of paper collaborators increases (from 3 to 6), the total number of authors' self-proclaimed contributions increases, roughly from 205% to 260%. However, if the author considers the credit of other collaborators before evaluating himself, the degree of exaggeration of contribution is constrained.
Note: Since less than half of the authors gave back to the survey, Epley could not add up the self-proclaimed contribution rate of all authors in a paper, and could only analyze individual authors. To this end, they designed an indicator: they averaged the contribution rate claimed by each author in the three aspects of paper conception, development and writing, and multiplied it by the number of authors.
The more members, the more exaggerated
While the above survey illustrates the prevalence of exaggerated contributions, it also found that group size can elevate the extent of exaggerated contributions. But because of the nature of the questionnaire study, it cannot be strictly controlled in the process, so its results do not seem so reliable. To produce stronger evidence, April and his colleagues designed another field experiment.
One of the experiments was moved into the Chicago Science and Technology Museum, where researchers randomly selected 339 visitors and divided them into groups of 3 or 6 to compete in grippers. The group with the highest average grip in 1 minute is the champion, and as a reward, each member of the champion group receives a $20 gift certificate. At the end of the competition, each player also evaluates the performance on the field, and some of them only need to evaluate their contribution to the group performance, while the other part evaluates the contribution of other members first, and then evaluates their own contribution.
Finally, the researchers added up the self-proclaimed contribution rate of all members of the group, and the results showed that the total contribution rate of the vast majority of the group exceeded the logical line by 100%. Moreover, the contribution rate of the 6-person group (113.6%) was significantly higher than that of the 3-person group (104.0%), and the boosting effect of group size on exaggerated contributions was confirmed. In addition, if group members consider only their own contributions, their claimed total contribution rate (114.8%) will be higher than those groups that consider others first and then consider themselves (102.6%). It can be seen that dividing a scoop of attention from oneself to others when discussing merits and rewards will be an effective measure to weaken the bias of exaggerated contribution.
In addition to the authors of the paper and the visitors to the Science and Technology Museum, Epley and others also used different forms of tasks among MBA students and netizen groups to reach the same conclusion as above. It can be seen that exaggerated contributions are very common, and the amplification effect of group size is also very stable.
Even a team of two people can't escape exaggerating their contributions...
Try to think about someone else first?
At present, exaggerated contributions in groups may have many psychological mechanisms, such as people's self-interest bias and their preference for good things, or it is caused by insensitivity to percentage numbers. Through their research, Epley points out that exaggerating contributions may simply be caused by people focusing on themselves rather than others, and is a quirk of egocentrism. At the same time, one can only concentrate one thing on one thing, so "myself" naturally becomes the focus of attention, and the world is divided into two separate parts: "how am I" and "how are others?"
Out of egocentrism, we have a clear sense of what we are doing, but it is difficult for us to fully and exhaustively assess the behavior of other members. This asymmetry of attention causes us to overestimate our own contributions and underestimate the credit of others when evaluating our contributions. And as the number of group members increases, it will become very difficult to answer each person's contribution clearly, and at this time we will also withdraw more attention to ourselves, so the degree of exaggeration of contribution will increase a lot.
Not to mention the collaborators, even the facial features on the same head, for the question of who has great merit, they are also in a fight... | Xiangsheng "Five Senses Contending for Merit"
Since exaggerating contributions can be caused by people paying too much attention to themselves, directing people to pay more attention to their peers' efforts when evaluating contributions can be a good regulatory measure. In the above experiments, the groups that needed to evaluate the contributions of others before evaluating their own contributions did have a lower degree of exaggeration.
In conclusion, Epley pointed out that their research has implications for organizations in many fields, such as companies designing employee performance, coaches distributing bonuses among team members, and evaluating the theoretical contributions of members in the academic community, which need to guide people to pay attention to the contributions of other members, so as to break the "high wall" built by self-centeredism.
Sometimes, even recalling the names of other members is enough to allow us to adjust our focus and thus view our own contributions and those of others relatively objectively.
Author: Sexy little foot neck
EDIT: odette
An AI
In fact, it is still a case. For example, when the elevator is overweight, you despise yourself, and everyone refuses to go out...
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