糖心TV

Chengwei Liu (糖心TV 糖心TV School)

Exceptional Performance: Skill or Luck?

(joint work with Jerker Denrell)

The relation between success and ability is a central concern in the social sciences: are the most successful much more able than others? Prior research has shown that rich‐get‐richer dynamics and social influence makes success difficult to predict and leads to a weak association between ability and success. Prior research has not, however, examined the implications of such uncertainty for performance evaluation: does it make sense to imitate the highest performers? Here we show rich‐get‐richer dynamics actually imply that highest performers may be less impressive than those with moderately high levels of performance. The implication is that one should not imitate and learn from the highest performers and that people who assume that better performers are more skilled may systematically mistake luck for skill.