Beware conflicts of interest | Dan Ariely

Translator: Jonas Tholstrup Christensen Reviewer: Mikael Fuhr

So, I was in the hospital for a long time.

Jeg var på hospitalet i meget lang tid.

And a few years after I left, I went back,

Og et par år efter jeg kom derfra, tog jeg tilbage,

and the chairman of the burn department was very excited to see me --

og formanden fra brandskade afdelingen var meget spændt på at se mig --

said, "Dan, I have a fantastic new treatment for you."

sagde, "Dan, jeg har en fantastisk ny behandlingsteknik til dig."

I was very excited. I walked with him to his office.

Jeg var meget spændt. Jeg fulgte med ham til hans kontor.

And he explained to me that, when I shave,

Og han forklarede mig, at når jeg barberer mig

I have little black dots on the left side of my face where the hair is,

har jeg små sorte pletter på venstre side af mit ansigt, hvor håret er,

but on the right side of my face

men på den højre side af mit ansigt

I was badly burned so I have no hair,

var jeg slemt forbrændt, så der er ikke noget hår,

and this creates lack of symmetry.

og dette skaber manglende symmetri.

And what's the brilliant idea he had?

Og hvad var denne fantastiske idé han havde?

He was going to tattoo little black dots

Han ville tatovere små sorte pletter

on the right side of my face

på den højre side af mit ansigt

and make me look very symmetric.

og få mig til at se meget symmetrisk ud.

It sounded interesting. He asked me to go and shave.

Det lød interessant. Han bad mig gå ud og barbere mig.

Let me tell you, this was a strange way to shave,

Lad mig fortælle jer, dette var en mærkelig måde at barbere sig på,

because I thought about it

fordi jeg tænkte på det

and I realized that the way I was shaving then

og det gik op for mig, at sådan som jeg barberede mig der

would be the way I would shave for the rest of my life --

ville være den måde, jeg barberede mig resten af livet --

because I had to keep the width the same.

fordi jeg skulle beholde den samme bredde.

When I got back to his office,

Da jeg kom tilbage til hans kontor

I wasn't really sure.

var jeg ikke rigtigt sikker.

I said, "Can I see some evidence for this?"

Jeg sagde, "Kan jeg se nogle beviser for dette?"

So he showed me some pictures

Så han viste mig nogle billeder

of little cheeks with little black dots --

af små kinder med små sorte pletter --

not very informative.

ikke særligt informerende.

I said, "What happens when I grow older and my hair becomes white?

Jeg sagde, "Hvad sker der når jeg bliver ældre og mit hår bliver hvidt?

What would happen then?"

Hvad vil der så ske?"

"Oh, don't worry about it," he said.

"Det skal du ikke tænke på" sagde han.

"We have lasers; we can whiten it out."

Vi har laser; vi kan afblege det"

But I was still concerned,

Men jeg var stadig skeptisk,

so I said, "You know what, I'm not going to do it."

så jeg sagde, "Ved du hvad, jeg gør det ikke."

And then came one of the biggest guilt trips of my life.

Og så kom en af de største skyldfølelser i mit liv.

This is coming from a Jewish guy, all right, so that means a lot.

Okay, det her kommer fra en jødisk fyr, så det siger ikke så lidt.

(Laughter)

(Latter)

And he said, "Dan, what's wrong with you?

Og han sagde, "Dan, hvad er der galt med dig?

Do you enjoy looking non-symmetric?

Kan du godt lide at se asymmetrisk ud?

Do you have some kind of perverted pleasure from this?

Får du en eller anden pervers nydelse ud af det?

Do women feel pity for you

Føler kvinder medlidenhed med for

and have sex with you more frequently?"

og har sex med dig oftere?"

None of those happened.

Intet af dette skete.

And this was very surprising to me,

Og det var meget overraskende for mig,

because I've gone through many treatments --

for jeg havde været igennem mange behandlinger --

there were many treatments I decided not to do --

der var mange behandlinger, jeg besluttede mig for ikke at tage imod --

and I never got this guilt trip to this extent.

og jeg fik aldrig denne skyldfølelse i samme grad.

But I decided not to have this treatment.

Men jeg bestemte mig for ikke at få behandlingen.

And I went to his deputy and asked him, "What was going on?

Og jeg henvendte mig til hans suppleant og spurgte ham, "Hvad sker her?

Where was this guilt trip coming from?"

Hvor stammer denne skyldfølelse fra?"

And he explained that they have done this procedure on two patients already,

Og han forklarede mig, at de havde gennemført proceduren på to patienter allerede,

and they need the third patient for a paper they were writing.

og de havde brug for en tredje patient til den afhandling de skrev.

(Laughter)

(Latter)

Now you probably think that this guy's a schmuck.

Nu tænker I sikkert, at denne fyr er en idiot.

Right, that's what he seems like.

Det er sådan, han fremstår.

But let me give you a different perspective on the same story.

Men lad mig give jer et andet perspektiv på den samme historie.

A few years ago, I was running some of my own experiments in the lab.

For et par år siden var jeg igang med nogle af mine egne eksperimenter i laboratoriet.

And when we run experiments,

Og når vi kører eksperimenter

we usually hope that one group will behave differently than another.

håber vi typisk, at en gruppe opfører sig anderledes end andre.

So we had one group that I hoped their performance would be very high,

Vi havde en gruppe, hvis præstationer jeg forventede, ville være meget høje,

another group that I thought their performance would be very low,

en anden gruppe jeg troede, ville have dårlige præstationer.

and when I got the results, that's what we got --

Og da jeg fik resultaterne, var det det vi fik --

I was very happy -- aside from one person.

jeg var meget glad -- bortset fra en person.

There was one person in the group

Der var en person i gruppen

that was supposed to have very high performance

som skulle have haft meget høj præstation,

that was actually performing terribly.

men som rent faktisk præstede meget dårligt.

And he pulled the whole mean down,

Og han trak hele gennemsnittet ned,

destroying my statistical significance of the test.

hvilket ødelagde den statistiske signifikans i testen.

So I looked carefully at this guy.

Så jeg kiggede omhyggeligt på denne fyr.

He was 20-some years older than anybody else in the sample.

Han var omkring 20 år ældre end alle andre i stikprøven.

And I remembered that the old and drunken guy

Og jeg huskede, at den gamle og fordrukne fyr

came one day to the lab

kom ind til laboratoriet en dag

wanting to make some easy cash

for at tjene nogle hurtige penge

and this was the guy.

og det var denne fyr.

"Fantastic!" I thought. "Let's throw him out.

"Fantastisk!" tænkte jeg. "Lad os smide ham ud.

Who would ever include a drunken guy in a sample?"

Hvem var dum nok til at inkludere en fuld mand i stikprøven?"

But a couple of days later,

Men et par dage senere

we thought about it with my students,

tænkte vi over det sammen med mine studerende,

and we said, "What would have happened if this drunken guy was not in that condition?

og vi sagde, "Hvad ville være sket, hvis denne fulde fyr ikke var i denne tilstand?

What would have happened if he was in the other group?

Hvad ville være sket, hvis han var i en anden gruppe?

Would we have thrown him out then?"

Ville vi have smidt ham ud så?"

We probably wouldn't have looked at the data at all,

Vi ville sikkert slet ikke have set på dataene,

and if we did look at the data,

og hvis vi så på dataene

we'd probably have said, "Fantastic! What a smart guy who is performing this low,"

ville vi sikker have sagt, "Fantastisk! Sikke en smart fyr som præsterer dårligt",

because he would have pulled the mean of the group lower,

fordi han ville have trukket gennemsnittet for gruppen længere ned,

giving us even stronger statistical results than we could.

hvilket ville have givet os endnu stærkere statistiske resultater, end vi kunne.

So we decided not to throw the guy out and to rerun the experiment.

Så vi bestemte os for ikke at smide fyren ud og for at gentage eksperimentet.

But you know, these stories,

Men I ved, disse historier

and lots of other experiments that we've done on conflicts of interest,

og en masse andre eksperimenter som vi har lavet om interessekonflikter

basically kind of bring two points

bringer egentlig to pointer

to the foreground for me.

frem for mig.

The first one is that in life we encounter many people

Den første er, at vi i livet kommet til at møde mange mennesker

who, in some way or another,

som, på en eller anden måde,

try to tattoo our faces.

prøver at tatovere vores ansigter.

They just have the incentives that get them to be blinded to reality

De har bare de incitamenter, som får dem til at blive blændet fra virkeligheden,

and give us advice that is inherently biased.

og giver os råd, som i sig selv er forudindtagede.

And I'm sure that it's something that we all recognize,

Og jeg er sikker på, at det er noget, vi alle genkender,

and we see that it happens.

og vi ser det ske.

Maybe we don't recognize it every time,

Måske genkender vi det ikke hver gang,

but we understand that it happens.

men vi er klar over, at det sker.

The most difficult thing, of course, is to recognize

Det sværeste er, selvfølgelig, at genkende

that sometimes we too

at vi nogle gange selv

are blinded by our own incentives.

er blændede af vores egne incitamenter.

And that's a much, much more difficult lesson to take into account.

Og det er en meget, meget sværere lektion at tage med i regnestykket.

Because we don't see how conflicts of interest work on us.

For vi ser ikke, hvordan interessekonflikter virker på os.

When I was doing these experiments,

Da jeg lavede disse eksperimenter

in my mind, I was helping science.

hjalp jeg, i mit hoved, videnskaben.

I was eliminating the data

Jeg fjenede data

to get the true pattern of the data to shine through.

for at få det sande mønster i dataen til at skinne igennem.

I wasn't doing something bad.

Jeg gjorde ikke noget forkert.

In my mind, I was actually a knight

I mine tanker var jeg faktisk en ridder,

trying to help science move along.

som prøvede at hjælpe videnskaben med at komme fremad.

But this was not the case.

Men det var ikke tilfældet.

I was actually interfering with the process with lots of good intentions.

Jeg blandede mig faktisk i processen med en masse gode intentioner.

And I think the real challenge is to figure out

Og jeg tror den sande udfordring, er at finde ud af

where are the cases in our lives

hvor i vores liv

where conflicts of interest work on us,

interessekonflikter har deres virkning på os,

and try not to trust our own intuition to overcome it,

og at prøve ikke at stole på vores egen intuition for at overkomme det,

but to try to do things

men at prøve at gøre ting

that prevent us from falling prey to these behaviors,

som forhindrer os i at falde for disse dårlige vaner,

because we can create lots of undesirable circumstances.

fordi vi kan skabe mange uønskede omstændigheder.

I do want to leave you with one positive thought.

Jeg vil gerne efterlade jer med en positiv tanke.

I mean, this is all very depressing, right --

Jeg mener, det her er alt sammen meget deprimerende, OK --

people have conflicts of interest, we don't see it, and so on.

mennesker har interessekonflikter, vi ser det ikke, og så videre.

The positive perspective, I think, of all of this

Det positive perspektiv er, mener jeg, at af alt dette,

is that, if we do understand when we go wrong,

hvis vi opdager, når vi gør noget forkert,

if we understand the deep mechanisms

hvis vi forstår de dybe mekanismer

of why we fail and where we fail,

der gør at vi fejler og hvor vi fejler,

we can actually hope to fix things.

er der faktisk håb for at vi kan rette op på tingene.

And that, I think, is the hope. Thank you very much.

Og det, tror jeg, er håbet. Mange tak.

(Applause)

(Klapsalver)