The Psychology of Pickiness and Desperation: a Manual for Job, Talent and Spouse Hunters
So, given the severe time constraint, will or should he lower his standards for the 21st candidate, raise them or just maintain them?
Equally important to ask is whether his response, and those of others in comparable situations, can be predicted.
The same recruiter has also interviewed 10 candidates—all superb—for a different position that doesn’t have to be filled for another month. So, given the absence of a time constraint and a continuing flood of applications, does he raise his standards, or merely maintain them? What should he do, given that there is no case for lowering them?
Five companies have shown strong interest in Daryl and are likely to make him an offer. So, given that evident popularity, will he become pickier and start looking for an even better deal? Should he?
A single 35-year-old woman who, for years, has wanted to get married as soon as possible, and is being nagged by her parents to do so, meets only four guys in the past year—all “losers”. So, will she be pickier with the fifth, or become more “desperate”? That is, will the standards she applies to the next guy be more stringent, or more relaxed? Again, what should they be?
To Change or Not to Change Standards?
What all of these cases have in common is the question of what decision rule and standards to adopt after a string of successes or failures.
The argument can be made that, in various situations, prior “success” rationally justifies raising one’s standards of selection and tightening the associated criteria. For example, having discovered how easy it’s been to attract cheerleaders, a handsome frat-boy varsity football captain concludes he’s good enough for Vogue models to afford dumping the cheerleaders.
This can be more abstractly described as success-induced ratcheting up of standards, with the ironic outcome that the cheerleaders become victims of their own success with him. However, a parallel argument can be made for simply maintaining the standards one has, just as a manufacturing production line with zero quality-control rejects does.
Likewise, it can be argued that a string of failures warrants lowering one’s standards, e.g., in the face of consistent rejection by upper-tier universities and Fortune 500 companies. Depending on what defines “failure” in each instance, a counter-argument, against raising one’s standards can be framed:
- DEMAND-SIDE FAILURE: If, by “failure”, what is meant is “demand-side failure”—the inability to measure up to the selected target’s standards and demands, e.g., Harvard’s or IBM’s demands on and expectations of applicants, then lowering one’s own standards and expectations, and, therefore, choosing a lower-tier target, would seem to be the rational response, barring evidence that there may yet be an “exception”.
This latter faith in the exception can be dangerous if predicated on the logic of the “lottery fallacy” rather than on the Pollyanna-ish adage “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again!”: “My last 100 lottery tickets were losers; so, my odds of winning on the next ones have increased!”
No—not when the outcomes of the lottery draws are mathematically independent of each other, just as having tossed 20 tails in a row does not alter the probability of getting a head on the next coin toss, which will remain ½.[Even though,before any toss, the odds virtually ensure one of them will be a head, after 19 tosses, the chance of getting a head on the next toss reverts to fifty-fifty.]
In fact, an unbroken, unrelieved string of failures may provide very strong evidence that the “dice” are loaded against you, that the game is rigged or that the failures are otherwise strong inductive evidence that a different outcome, viz., failure, should not be expected.
Although the oft-quoted maxim that “insanity is doing the same thing over and over, but expecting a different result” is of limited validity, e.g., bending a piece of plastic over and over, the same way, will, eventually, through metal fatigue, break it, a modified, better-confirmed, more-supportable version does apply here: “Observing the same thing over and over, but expecting a different result is frequently, although not always insane.” For example, observing gravity at work. Besides, is “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again!” insane advice?
But then, there’s comic W.C. Fields: “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There’s no point in being a damn fool about it.”
- SUPPLY-SIDE FAILURE: On the other hand, if “failure” is “supply-side failure”, the failure of screened targets to satisfy final-selection criteria, i.e., to supply what the “hunter” is demanding, the job, talent or spouse hunter has three choices: raise, lower or maintain the selection standards.
[S]he probably will and should raise the standards if the criteria [s]he has set are contributing to the failure by having set the bar too low and therefore having attracted lower-caliber talent or having targeted what turn out to be inferior companies and jobs; however, if the problem lies in the talent or job “pool” rather than in the hunter’s criteria, adjusting to that becomes more problematic than when it is a criteria problem.
When the pool is the problem, multiple additional factors complicate the decision making—e.g., the existence of a time constraint or a rational basis for expecting an “exception” of the sort mentioned above.
Of course, it is possible to straddle the decision fence by neither tightening nor loosening one’s standards and criteria. In practice, when faced with an inadequate pool of target talent or jobs, the foremost task is to ensure that the targeting process, too-low or otherwise off-target standards and criteria are not responsible for drawing from an inferior pool of candidates, e.g., by short-listing the wrong candidate targets or by otherwise biasing later steps toward selecting them.
- STANDARDS FAILURE VS. EXPECTATIONS FAILURE: Repeatedly alluded to in the foregoing is the distinction between failed expectations and failed standards. When we fail to get the job, university admission, spouse or job candidate we want, the problem is clearly and as a minimum a problem of failed expectations. However, whether it is also a problem of failed standards is an open question the answer to which depends on the circumstances.
Obviously, unwittingly setting low standards is likely to result in failed expectations, e.g., by using a personnel test that is either too easy, unreliable, invalid or otherwise below or off the mark. In the instance in which the low standards are the ones deliberately set, failed expectations are unlikely.
Ironically, this can result in one of those situations in which consistent success is a red flag warranting adoption of more stringent standards. A manufacturer unable to keep up with demand because of low pricing of its products represents an analogous case with regard to targeting customers.
Victimized by its own success, e.g., frustrating and alienating its unsatisfied customer-base, running short on inventory, having to pay workers overtime to catch up and failing to maximize total revenue, the company would be smart to raise per unit prices—as a form of raising the bar to become a customer.
Likewise, the marriage-minded, nagged woman stuck with a string of losers should reflect on whether her standards and criteria should be made more stringent instead of lowering or retaining those standards—i.e., instead of becoming desperate and compromising.
- EXCELLENCE-DRIVEN FAILURE: Her case also illustrates a possible paradoxical failure—Imagine that she not only fails to attract the best, but also attracts the worst, because her standards are too exacting.
For example, she warns online that she is “high-maintenance”, deserves to be treated like a princess and forgiven for everything she may do, has a horrible temper, and is intolerant of anyone with an IQ below 160 or wealth less than that of a Rothschild.
In demanding excellence, she reveals her lack of it and thereby pretty much ensures that the only guys who will “apply” will either be liars, stupid or otherwise fools, insane or otherwise unattractive to women, despite satisfying the stated criteria—after all, how long would a guy willing and able to put up with those demands and requirements remain single?
Alternatively, she is likely to experience excellence-driven failure when no guy dares to contact her.
The same paradox can afflict recruiting: Make the job description and stated requirements so insanely stringent and complex that no one imagines [s]he can meet them. Ditto for job hunting: In your cover letter, set your salary and other expectations impossibly high. Or present qualifications that are so good that they are too good.
One friend of mine, a former Canadian news network producer and on-camera CNN reporter was consistently passed over for subsequent jobs because his outstanding credentials made him a competitive threat to some entrenched staffer, rather than because of any “über-qualification ”.
Predicting Changes in Standards
All of these considerations lead to the question of the possibility of predicting how anyone will respond to a personal string of successes and failures. When can a cheerleader predict that she will be dumped just because her excellence that attracted the frat boy also convinced him that he can “do better”?
When can a company anticipate that their excellent job offer will inflate the ego of the candidate to the extent that [s]he will start looking for an even better deal?
Maslow and the Economics of Standards
On the success side, start with the case of the frat boy: If he is what Harvard psychologist Abraham Maslow described as “D-motivated”—“deficiency motivated”, he will tend to focus on what he lacks or is missing in prioritizing and choosing, as opposed to someone who is “B-motivated”—“being motivated”, who focuses on the intrinsic rewards of what is experienced, in a Zen-nish way.
In economic terms, the D-motivated type is preoccupied with opportunity costs of everything—“What am I giving up to get this?” or “What am I missing out on/lacking?”
Hence, someone who has a D-motivated, “I could’da had a V-8!”—a vegetable juice blend instead of a soda—mentality, is more likely to want to “trade up” to a better partner, job or job candidate. Equivalently, someone who focuses on costs more than benefits in making life’s calculations and decisions will probably also be more likely to trade up after a string of successes, because of the opportunity-cost effect.
On the failure side, predicting what someone will do after a string of demand-side failures, e.g., rejection by Ivy League universities or IBM, is similarly governed by which prong of a dichotomy gets applied—in this case the dichotomy being between retaining vs. lowering one’s standards.
If the hunter acknowledges that no control can be exerted over the target schools’ or companies’ standards and believes that these standards are themselves standard among all such schools or companies, and unlikely in the extreme to have any exceptions, it can safely be predicted that [s]he will adopt lower standards—unless faith in the “exception” or in the miscalculated “lottery” odds trumps it.
In psychological terms, which of these two demand-side failure-scenarios will prevail may be influenced by the degree to which the hunter has an “internal locus of control ” vs. an “external locus of control “.
The former is characterized by faith in the fruitfulness of one’s own efforts, standards, judgment and persistence, the latter being more inclined to believe that control is exerted by external agencies, such as Ivy League universities, to the extent that one’s will and determination are helpless to influence them.
So, considering the conflicting options of increased pickiness and desperation, what should that frantic deadline-freighted recruiter do after his string of 20 failures? Lower, raise or maintain his standards in screening the 21st candidate?
As a minimum, review them…
…while maintaining his composure.