Dunning-Kruger theory of institutions

Lay theories of social mechanisms

January 20, 2022 — January 20, 2022

cooperation

culture

evolution

how do science

incentive mechanisms

institutions

mind

snarks

wonk

The terrible guesses we make about how institutions work.

Placeholder. I am gathering examples of institutions that demonstrably do not work how we seem to assume, for now.

1 Incoming

moral wetware.
Institutions designed for angels
This speaks to me: USDA Official Takes Courageous Stand Against interstate Countercyclical Potato Pricing
Why Doesn’t Healthcare Improve Health?
Weirdly high implied QALY valuation of COVID interventions (Reddy 2020; Robinson, Sullivan, and Shogren 2021)
John Sterman’s Beer Games
- Flight Simulators for Management Education
- What the Beer Game can teach us about hoarding toilet paper
- Peter Dizikes on the history of The Beer Game
- Buy the Beer Game
Aristotle’s physics, but for institutions
institutional learning as statistical learning
Newell and Wasson’s classic study of certain predictable failures of policy (Newell and Wasson 2002)
validating models by simulation (Sterman 2009)
validating models by experiment (Hubbard 2014)
Classic conspiracies are usually based on some Dunning-Kruger theorising.

2 References

Denzau, and North. 1994. “Shared Mental Models: Ideologies and Institutions.” Kyklos.

Doyle, Radzicki, and Trees. 1998. “Measuring Change in Mental Models of Dynamic Systems: An Exploratory Study.”

Garip. 2020. “What Failure to Predict Life Outcomes Can Teach Us.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Heck, Chabris, Watts, et al. 2020. “Objecting to Experiments Even While Approving of the Policies or Treatments They Compare.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Hubbard. 2014. How to Measure Anything: Finding the Value of Intangibles in Business.

Murphy. 2020. Markets Against Modernity: Ecological Irrationality, Public and Private. Capitalist Thought : Studies in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics.

Newell, and Wasson. 2002. “Social System Vs Solar System: Why Policy Makers Need History.” In.

Reddy. 2020. “Population Health, Economics and Ethics in the Age of COVID-19.” BMJ Global Health.

Richards. 2001. “Coordination and Shared Mental Models.” American Journal of Political Science.

Robinson, Sullivan, and Shogren. 2021. “Do the Benefits of COVID-19 Policies Exceed the Costs? Exploring Uncertainties in the Age–VSL Relationship.” Risk Analysis.

Sommers, and Norton. 2006. “Lay Theories About White Racists: What Constitutes Racism (and What Doesn’t).” Group Processes & Intergroup Relations.

Sterman. 2009. Business dynamics: systems thinking and modeling for a complex world.

Sterman, and Dogan. 2015. “‘I’m Not Hoarding, I’m Just Stocking up Before the Hoarders Get Here.’: Behavioral Causes of Phantom Ordering in Supply Chains.” Journal of Operations Management.

Sterman, and Sweeney. 2007. “Understanding Public Complacency about Climate Change: Adults’ Mental Models of Climate Change Violate Conservation of Matter.” Climatic Change.

Uscinski, and Atkinson. 2013. “Why Do People Believe in Conspiracy Theories? The Role of Informational Cues and Predispositions.” SSRN Scholarly Paper ID 2268782.

Watts. 2011. Everything Is Obvious: Once You Know the Answer.

———. 2014. “Common Sense and Sociological Explanations.” American Journal of Sociology.

Zedelius, Müller, and Schooler. 2017. The Science of Lay Theories: How Beliefs Shape Our Cognition, Behavior, and Health.