This article was published in Issue 02 of The Beautiful Truth. Order your copy here.

What do a former professional poker player and a neural science professor have in common? More than you might think. Though differing in profession, decision-making consultant (and poker champion) Annie Duke and psychology and neural-science professor Jay Van Bavel are both fascinated by the superpower of uncertainty and the dangers of overconfidence. Friends for a number of years and often crossing paths in intellectual spheres, they each offer unique perspectives on uncertainty. 

As Associate Professor of Psychology and Neural Science at New York University, Van Bavel’s work focuses on how collective concerns – like group identities, moral values and political beliefs – shape our minds and influence our behaviour. He co-authored The Power of Us (2021) and hopes that his research into social identity will offer important insights into issues such as social conflict and public health. 

Former professional poker player Duke is now an author, corporate speaker and decision-making consultant. Using her experiences as the only woman to have won the World Series of Poker: Tournament of Champions and the NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship, Duke now focuses on the role that decision-making plays in our lives. She is also Co-founder of the Alliance for Decision Education, a nonprofit whose mission is to improve lives by empowering students through decision skills education. 

Duke and Van Bavel sat down with The Beautiful Truth to discuss why their perspectives on uncertainty, bias, decision-making and more are critical tools in the often polarised world that we live in today.

You both talk about how uncertainty can actually be a superpower. How do you embrace uncertainty without undermining the confidence that people have in you?

Duke: We need to stop equating confidence with certainty; that’s where people get confused. I can be uncertain about something because there is hidden information and luck involved, but I can also be confident about the quality of my decision. Do I believe in the decision? Do I believe in my forecast? 

We need to stop equating confidence with certainty; that’s where people get confused.

If you do it the right way, expressing uncertainty will inspire confidence in the people who work for you. You’re not saying, “I don’t know”. You’re saying “here is what I do know and based on that information, I feel confident that this is the right course of action”. That expresses a great deal of confidence. 

We need to think more long term. When you say: “I’m 100% sure I know that this is going to work out”, it’s getting you short-term gain; everyone thinks, “I really believe in that person”. But the long-term damage is significant because when things don’t work out, you erode faith.

Van Bavel: I agree. You’re trying to predict human behaviour, which is by nature incredibly uncertain and complex. Even if you know everything about someone’s personality or the situation itself, there are still things that you can’t account for. 

Research shows that people are more likely to find you trustworthy if you communicate uncertainty, rather than if you overstate what you know – especially if you turn out to be wrong. Sharing your uncertainty is a way of building trust.

During the pandemic, people lost trust in some leaders because they were speaking with greater certainty than the data allowed. When their knowledge evolved – which is a good thing – people felt like they were being misled. It erodes trust to overstate things because it doesn’t give you flexibility to evolve your thinking based on new evidence.

While trust is incredibly important, there are many leaders who have lied but remain successful. Why do people still support them? 

Van Bavel: We’ve found that when people use very certain, morally saturated language, they signal clear beliefs and a distinct sense of right and wrong. This engages a lot of people who already think in the same way, while also being alienating for those who don’t think like that because it leaves no room for discussion. 

You’re trying to predict human behaviour, which is by nature incredibly uncertain and complex.

When leaders use this language it therefore builds a loyal but insular following. Part of what loyalty means is going along with what the leader says – even if it’s wrong. A powerful test of loyalty is if someone will spread a lie that their leader has touted. This is something that leaders in corrupt systems do all the time as a way of seeing how far they can test loyalty, but also seeing how far they can push the lie among their followers. 

When these lies get amplified, it creates a shared reality that can move further and further away from the truth, which then alienates a larger set of people and in turn causes the loyal group to cling to the leadership even more. 

Duke: My friend put this so well: you have the person who’s doing the lying and then you have the launderers of the lie. 

When we hold beliefs that are consensus, we’re willing to change our minds based on new evidence. For example, if you tell me Pluto is a planet, and then you tell me it’s not, I don’t really care – I take on board the new evidence and update my belief system. 

But when you hold extreme beliefs, the act of repeating something untrue in service of the ‘in-group’ assimilates the individual’s identity within that group mindset. Even when there is overwhelming evidence that contradicts the beliefs held by the group, or the group’s leader, individuals are much less likely to change their minds. 

Do you think people are becoming more or less open-minded? 

Duke: I think that social media makes us more connected and more divided. If you have a fringe belief, it’s very easy to find a group of people online who share that belief. But in doing so, the individual also becomes separated from everyone else. 

I think that social media makes us more connected and more divided.

Open-minded discussion is not often seen anymore. People get rewarded for basing their online interactions in emotions, morality and a lack of nuance. When someone expresses an ‘out-group’ opinion, they incur a lot of condemnation from others who consider their opinion to be a moral certitude. But in reality, most issues or debates have many sides to the argument. 

It is also an interesting conversation when it comes to privacy. It’s very easy to tell which ‘in-group’ someone is part of based on their social media profile – what they post, who they follow, who follows them and so on. It’s difficult to put the genie back in the bottle once it’s out. 

Take the ‘bring your whole self to work’ movement – people are now backtracking and trying to replace some personal boundaries between their work lives and their personal lives, but it’s difficult to do that when your colleagues follow you on social media. There are many examples of people who have been disciplined, or even fired, due to something that they tweeted.

Van Bavel: Some platforms are designed to make money in an attention economy, and the reward structure can become dangerous. What grabs your attention? What are you going to engage with? It’s the things that are provocative or extreme, not the things that are nuanced or capture the true complexity of what people believe.

We researched multiple social-media platforms and found that the single biggest factor in something going viral is when there’s negative news about an ‘out-group’. Research has also found that people who hold extreme beliefs tend to dominate the conversation. These people drive the conversation in such a way that there is no room for uncertainty or doubt and so psychological safety is eroded. 

But I think it’s always about balance: the internet can be divisive, but it can also foster connection, communication and change. There is a lot of promise in how it can connect people and facilitate conversations – especially when it comes to deciding a new post-Covid ‘normal’ for our workplaces. 

What advice would you give to business leaders about responding to public issues?

Duke: People can very quickly tell the difference between something that is performative and something that is authentic. For example, Ben & Jerry’s makes a lot of political statements, but that’s because it has always been a political company. You would be surprised if it didn’t. 

If it fits your identity as a company to respond to something publicly, do it. But it’s not always everyone’s place to make a comment. Sometimes, it has nothing to do with company identity, values or mission, and at that point a public statement is clearly going to feel inauthentic. 

You can be a Patagonia or a Ben & Jerry’s, but you can also be a company that just provides a necessary product or service. That can be the sole mission and purpose of the company, and so to speak about complex and unrelated issues happening in the real world becomes performative.