Beware conflicts of interest | Dan Ariely

Translator: Klavdija Cernilogar Reviewer: Tilen Pigac - EFZG

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

Torej, dolgo časa sem bil v bolnišnici.

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

In nekaj let po odhodu sem se vrnil tja

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

in vodja oddelka za opekline me je bil zelo vesel --

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

rekel je: "Dan, fantastično novo zdravljenje imam zate".

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

Zelo sem bil vznemirjen. Šel sem z njim v ordinacijo.

And he explained to me that, when I shave,

In razložil mi je, da imam, ko se obrijem,

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

majhne črne pikice po levi strani obraza, kjer imam brado,

but on the right side of my face

ampak na desni strani obraza

I was badly burned so I have no hair,

pa sem bil hudo opečen in zato nimam dlak,

and this creates lack of symmetry.

kar povzroča nesimetričnost.

And what's the brilliant idea he had?

In kakšno brilijantno idejo je imel?

He was going to tattoo little black dots

Hotel je tetovirati majhne črne pikice

on the right side of my face

po desni strani mojega obraza

and make me look very symmetric.

da bi izgledal bolj simetrično.

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

Zvenelo je zanimivo. Naročil mi je, naj se obrijem.

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

Naj vam povem, da je bil to čuden način britja,

because I thought about it

ker sem o njem razmišljal

and I realized that the way I was shaving then

in spoznal, da bi se, tako kot sem se takrat obril,

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

bril do konca svojega življenja --

because I had to keep the width the same.

ker sem moral ohraniti enako širino.

When I got back to his office,

Ko sem se vrnil v ordinacijo,

I wasn't really sure.

nisem bil prav prepričan.

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

Dejal sem: "Lahko vidim kak dokaz za to?"

So he showed me some pictures

Pokazal mi je nekaj fotografij

of little cheeks with little black dots --

majhnih lic z majhnimi črnimi pikami --

not very informative.

ni bilo zelo informativno.

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

Vprašal sem ga: "Kaj se bo zgodilo, ko ostarim in bodo dlake postale bele?

What would happen then?"

Kaj bo takrat?"

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

"O, ne skrbi," je odvrnil.

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

"Imamo laserje; lahko ti stvar pobelimo".

But I was still concerned,

A še vedno me je skrbelo,

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

zato sem rekel: "Veš kaj, tega ne bom naredil".

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

In potem se je začel eden največjih občutkov krivde v mojem življenju.

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

Tole govorim kot Žid, torej to veliko pomeni.

(Laughter)

(Smeh)

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

In dejal je: "Dan, kaj je narobe s teboj?

Do you enjoy looking non-symmetric?

Ti je všeč, da si nesimetričen?

Do you have some kind of perverted pleasure from this?

Je v tem nekakšen perverzni užitek?

Do women feel pity for you

Se smiliš ženskam

and have sex with you more frequently?"

in zato pogosteje spijo s tabo?"

None of those happened.

Nič od tega.

And this was very surprising to me,

In to me je zelo presenetilo,

because I've gone through many treatments --

saj sem imel že mnoga zdravljenja --

there were many treatments I decided not to do --

za mnoga od njih se nisem odločil --

and I never got this guilt trip to this extent.

in nikoli nisem imel takega občutka krivde.

But I decided not to have this treatment.

Ampak odločil sem se proti temu posegu.

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

Šel sem do njegovega namestnika in ga vprašal: "Kaj se dogaja?

Where was this guilt trip coming from?"

Od kod ta občutek krivde?"

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

Pojasnil mi je, da so poseg že opravili na dveh pacientih,

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

potrebovali pa so še tretjega, da bi lahko dokončali znanstveni članek.

(Laughter)

(Smeh)

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

Verjetno sedaj mislite, da je ta tip šušmar.

Right, that's what he seems like.

Ja, tak vtis daje.

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

Ampak naj vam ponudim drug pogled na isto zgodbo.

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

Pred nekaj leti sem sam izvajal nekaj laboratorijskih poskusov.

And when we run experiments,

In ko jih izvajamo,

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

ponavadi upamo, da se bo ena skupina obnašala drugače od druge.

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

Imeli smo skupino, za katero sem upal, da bo zelo uspešna,

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

in drugo, za katero sem mislil, da bo zelo neuspešna.

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

In ko sem dobil rezultate, so bili prav taki --

I was very happy -- aside from one person.

bil sem zelo vesel -- razen za eno osebo.

There was one person in the group

V skupini, ki naj bi bila uspešna,

that was supposed to have very high performance

je bil človek,

that was actually performing terribly.

ki je pravzaprav imel zelo slab rezultat.

And he pulled the whole mean down,

In znižal je celotno povprečje

destroying my statistical significance of the test.

ter uničil statistično pomembnost testa.

So I looked carefully at this guy.

Natančno sem si ogledal tega tipa.

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

Star je bil kakih dvajset let več od drugih v vzorcu.

And I remembered that the old and drunken guy

In spomnim se, da je nekega dne v laboratorij

came one day to the lab

prišel pijan moški,

wanting to make some easy cash

ki je hotel na lahko zaslužiti nekaj denarja,

and this was the guy.

in to je bil on.

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

"Fantastično!" sem si mislil. "Izločimo ga.

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

Kdo bi sploh vključil pijanca v vzorec?"

But a couple of days later,

Čez nekaj dni

we thought about it with my students,

pa smo o tem razmislili s študenti

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

in se vprašali: "Kaj bi bilo, če ta pijanec ne bi bil v takem stanju?

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

Kaj bi se zgodilo, če bi bil v drugi skupini?

Would we have thrown him out then?"

Bi ga v tem primeru izločili?"

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

Verjetno sploh ne bi pogledali podatkov

and if we did look at the data,

in če bi jih,

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

bi verjetno rekli: "Fantastično! Kako pameten tip, ki dosega tako slab rezultat",

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

saj bi povprečje skupine potisnil navzdol

giving us even stronger statistical results than we could.

in nam dal še močnejše statistične rezultate.

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

Tako smo se odločili, da ga ne izločimo in da ponovimo poskus.

But you know, these stories,

Ampak, veste, te zgodbe

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

in veliko drugih poskusov, ki smo jih naredili o konfliktu interesov,

basically kind of bring two points

v osnovi kažejo na

to the foreground for me.

dve zadevi.

The first one is that in life we encounter many people

Prva je, da v življenju srečamo veliko ljudi,

who, in some way or another,

ki tako ali drugače

try to tattoo our faces.

poskušajo tetovirati naše obraze.

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

Zaradi svojih lastnih interesov postanejo slepi za resnično življenje

and give us advice that is inherently biased.

in nam dajejo v temelju pristranske nasvete.

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

In prepričan sem, da to vsi prepoznamo

and we see that it happens.

in vidimo, da se dogaja.

Maybe we don't recognize it every time,

Morda tega ne prepoznamo vedno,

but we understand that it happens.

razumemo pa, da se dogaja.

The most difficult thing, of course, is to recognize

Najtežje, seveda, je prepoznati,

that sometimes we too

da smo včasih mi sami

are blinded by our own incentives.

slepi zaradi svojih interesov.

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

In to je lekcija, ki jo je veliko, veliko težje upoštevati.

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

Kajti ne vidimo, kako konflikt interesov deluje na nas.

When I was doing these experiments,

Ko sem izvajal te poskuse,

in my mind, I was helping science.

sem v svoji glavi pomagal znanosti.

I was eliminating the data

Odstranjeval sem podatke,

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

da bi osvetlil njihov pravi vzorec.

I wasn't doing something bad.

Nič slabega nisem počel.

In my mind, I was actually a knight

V svoji glavi sem bil pravzaprav vitez,

trying to help science move along.

ki je pripomogel k razvoju znanosti.

But this was not the case.

A to ni bilo res.

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

V bistvu sem se vmešaval v proces, čeprav z dobrimi nameni.

And I think the real challenge is to figure out

In mislim, da je pravi izziv ugotoviti,

where are the cases in our lives

v katerih primerih v življenju

where conflicts of interest work on us,

konflikt interesov deluje na nas

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

in poskusiti ne zaupati intuiciji, ko ga hočemo premagati,

but to try to do things

temveč skušati početi stvari,

that prevent us from falling prey to these behaviors,

ki preprečujejo, da bi postali žrtve takega obnašanja,

because we can create lots of undesirable circumstances.

saj lahko ustvarimo veliko neželenih okoliščin.

I do want to leave you with one positive thought.

Končati želim s pozitivno mislijo.

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

Hočem reči, vse to je precej depresivno, ne --

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

ljudje imajo konflikt interesov, ne prepoznamo ga, itd.

The positive perspective, I think, of all of this

Pozitivni vidik vsega tega je, vsaj mislim,

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

da če razumemo, ko naredimo napako,

if we understand the deep mechanisms

če razumemo globoke mehanizme

of why we fail and where we fail,

zakaj in kje nam ne uspe,

we can actually hope to fix things.

potem lahko upamo, da bomo stvari popravili.

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

In v tem mislim, da je upanje. Hvala vam.

(Applause)

(Aplavz)