|
| omgwtfbbq wrote:
| 2nd place is just 1st loser
| smileypete wrote:
| Only an anecdote, but...
|
| https://cdn-ctstaging.pressidium.com/wp-content/uploads/2020...
| https://www.taipeitimes.com/images/2012/08/05/P18-120805-a5....
|
| :)
| shadilay wrote:
| In the case of the Chinese athlete, perhaps it is because the
| Chinese government takes a very dim view of 'failure'.
| jeegsy wrote:
| I love it when studies match intuition. Silver mad they didnt get
| Gold, Bronze happy to get a medal.
| asciimov wrote:
| As someone who was involved with music competitions I can attest
| to being happier with 3rd than 2nd. For me it was the fact that
| if I was 3rd, well at least 2 people were better than me, but if
| I was 2nd (and it was a close competition) it became an issue of
| "why did I loose?"
|
| When competition is close you can loose for factors outside of
| the competition itself. You can loose because of differences in
| judging opinions or because of a Judge not liking you, worse
| ranked competitors can win due to scoring calculation systems,
| you can even loose biased on how hungry or how bad the judges
| last meal was.
| mritun wrote:
| For my bachelors I went to this school in India which did grading
| on a 10 point scale -
|
| AA == 10, DD == 4, FF (fail and eligible for re-exam) == 3 and FR
| (fail and repeat the coursework next semester).
|
| Gradesheet was put publically in the hall. I consistently saw
| that the two happiest people were those either got the AA or DD.
|
| When I got AA I was obviously happy! Once I got a DD on a
| particularly difficult course. I was damn happy I didn't fail!
| jedberg wrote:
| I feel like this would be heavily biased by the culture of the
| people in their training set and the culture of the medalists.
| Different cultures have different facial expressions for
| happiness.
| antiterra wrote:
| I think studies confirming conventional wisdom are often unfairly
| maligned as uselessly addressing the obvious. It makes sense to
| back up perception with data.
|
| However, the model of competitors feeling that silver='almost
| won' and bronze='lucky to get a medal' is by no means as novel as
| they claim. It's strange to me that they present it as 'new'
| instead of a commonly held
| partiallypro wrote:
| As Jerry Seinfeld once said, when you win silver, you're the 1st
| place loser. No one lost ahead of you.
| chegra wrote:
| I also found my C students are happier than my A students.
| JamilD wrote:
| A students are often formerly unhappy C students.
|
| C students are often happy C students.
| dogorman wrote:
| > _A students are often formerly unhappy C students._
|
| Is there any empirical evidence for this? It flies in the
| face of my experience, which is that A students were A
| students from the start; that C students almost never become
| A students, and that A students sometimes become C students.
| ska wrote:
| I think both cases exist commonly.
|
| There are plenty of people entirely capable of A marks in
| most educational situations who don't get them because they
| don't care and don't do the work. Something changes and
| they get interested. The jump from an indifferent C to a
| solid A often isn't that far.
|
| Somewhat related: There are more PhD's than you might
| expect that were also high school drop outs.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| squarefoot wrote:
| In sports where there's no group competition but results come
| after gold final, bronze final, semi-finals, etc. a silver medal
| means you lost the gold final, that is, your last match was a
| defeat, while if you get the bronze it means your last match
| ended up a victory, also a victory coming well after you accepted
| the reality that there won't be any gold.
| anm89 wrote:
| I wonder if there is bias where, in advance of the competition,
| the silver earners are more likely to think they have a shot at
| gold than the bronze earners or if they are generally more
| experienced.
| bmmayer1 wrote:
| The Olympics is really my favorite sporting event. Although, I
| think I have a problem with that silver medal. Because when you
| think about it, you win the gold - you feel good, you win the
| bronze - you think, "Well, at least I got something". But when
| you win that silver it's like, "Congratulations, you almost won.
| Of all the losers you came in first of that group. You're the
| number one loser. No one lost ahead of you!"
|
| - Jerry Seinfeld
| sgustard wrote:
| If they introduced a 4th place medal, would the bronze
| medalists feel worse?
| cdstyh wrote:
| Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to other
| people.
| slingnow wrote:
| ... said no one who ever competed professionally in anything.
| sitkack wrote:
| Simone Biles only competes with herself.
| joekim wrote:
| Are you implying she doesn't go for gold?
| lupire wrote:
| If that was her goal she could sandbag, but she doesn't.
| gnicholas wrote:
| Well, there's a silver lining (pun intended), which is that the
| silver medal is made out of pure silver and is therefore worth
| much more than the bronze medal.
|
| The gold medal is made of solid silver that is plated by a
| small amount (4oz, IIRC) of gold. EDIT: 6 grams, not 4oz, as
| pointed out below.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| 4oz would be a large amount of gold, over $7000 worth.
|
| From an article I read:
|
| This year's medals are made from material recycled from
| electronic devices donated by the people of Japan. However,
| Olympic gold medals are required to be made from at least
| 92.5% silver, and must contain a minimum of six grams of
| gold. The Tokyo 2020 Olympic gold medals contain more than
| six grams of gold plating on pure silver. Silver medals are
| pure silver while bronze medals are red brass (95% copper and
| 5% zinc). The Olympic gold medals at Tokyo 2020 weigh roughly
| 556g, with silver weighing 550g and bronze 450g.
| rowanG077 wrote:
| This is one of the things I find most annoying about the
| Olympics. Oh you spend billions on useless frivolous things.
| And then the literal gold medal is fake.
| gnicholas wrote:
| Unless they made the medals much smaller, that would be
| incredibly expensive. They give out thousands of medals,
| after all. Someone smarter than me can calculate the cost
| based on the size of the medals and the density of gold.
|
| Also, athletes would probably feel more pressure to sell
| their medals if they were solid gold. That would enrich
| them, which is good, but there's something to be said for
| the medals remaining in the hands of the athletes.
| [deleted]
| rowanG077 wrote:
| I once calculated it and came to the conclusion it was
| easily doable for the medals to be pure gold.
|
| Let's take the Rio 2016 medal as a reference. It has 494g
| of silver and 6g of gold. For a cost of $564 [1]. There
| were 307 gold medals awarded[2]. This comes to a total of
| 173148$ for the medals.
|
| Let's take the worst possible conversion. i.e. you want a
| solid gold medal with the same volume as the original.
| Silver has a density of 10,49g per cubic centimeter and
| gold has a density of 19.32g per cubic centimeter. So to
| get the same volume we need 910g of gold to replace the
| silver. Price of gold per gram in 2016 was about 40$. So
| this 910g of gold would cost 36400$. For a total gold
| medal price of 53,329,584$. Let's ignore the silver you
| no longer need since it's not that significant.
|
| For reference the entirety of the rio olympics cost 13.2
| billion[3]. Having solid gold medals would be about 0.4%
| additional cost. Yes it's a lot of money but it doesn't
| seem unrealistic to me at all.
|
| [1] https://somethingborrowedpdx.com/how-much-does-a-
| olympic-gol...
|
| [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Summer_Olympics_med
| al_tab....
|
| [3] https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1051553/cost-
| of-rio-...
| gnicholas wrote:
| > _There were 307 gold medals awarded_
|
| Does that account for team sports, or Paralympics?
| rowanG077 wrote:
| It doesn't include team sport and the paralympics. But I
| wouldn't include the paralympics anyway, just like I
| wouldn't include the youth olympics. Team sport actually
| does have to be counted. But I don't think it changes the
| conclusion. By far the most olympic sports are solo.
| handmodel wrote:
| Even if only 10% of olympic sports were team sports - but
| those teams were things like basketball/soccer/volleyball
| that have 15+ players per team - that would mean the
| majority of medals given out are to people who were on a
| team.
| lupire wrote:
| it's not the cost that matters, its the uselessness and
| hugely increased security risk.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Edit: this is wrong, see the comment below, I
| misunderstood an article that said "339 medals will be
| awarded". It's 339 events will be contested, and of
| course team events have multiple medals.
|
| Well, not really thousands of medals - in this year's
| summer games there will be 339 medals awarded, so 113
| gold medals.
|
| Tokyo gold medals weigh 556g, so if they were solid gold
| (their weight would differ a bit but be in the same ball
| park) each gold medal would be worth nearly $33,000 just
| in metal costs, which would work out to a total of
| $3,694,286 for all the gold medals.
| strulovich wrote:
| I think you miscalculated. 339 sets of medals will be
| given for a total of 5000. Also, the Paralympic Games add
| some more medals.
|
| So the actual number will be north of 10 million it
| seems.
| Thrymr wrote:
| So, around 0.1% of the cost of putting on the games?
|
| https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-tokyo-olympics-
| staggering-p...
| lovecg wrote:
| The extra security around all this gold would probably
| end up costing more than the medals themselves.
| gnicholas wrote:
| > _their weight would differ a bit but be in the same
| ball park_
|
| Apparently gold is nearly twice as dense as silver:
| https://www.edrsilver.com/English/ceo-corner/ceo-corner-
| deta...
| uyt wrote:
| The additional cost might be a small percentage of the
| budget but what does it buy you? If you can't justify it,
| it will get cut. All the other frivolous things have pointy
| haired managers advocating for them.
|
| This happens a lot for any sport considered fun or
| prestigious. For example the prize money from competitive
| programming in the 2000s was actually pretty decent
| (topcoder paid out 100k total). Then they realized the top
| people will still show up even if there's no prize.
| rowanG077 wrote:
| Oh I definitely understand. I just think it's ridiculous.
| The event is about the olympians. Spending a fraction of
| a percent of the budget of the event on the price seems
| fair.
| [deleted]
| choeger wrote:
| That's why I think there should be _two_ silver medals,
| immediately given to the winner of two semi-finals.
|
| If you think about any sport with a one-on-one final, the
| silver medal is for the loser of that final. But the same
| team/athlete _won_ a semi-final and were probably excited when
| they did. So just hand them the medal at that point.
|
| Things are a tad more complicated for tournaments with 3+n
| finalists. But I have the feeling that being the second-fastest
| out of ten sprinters is not a bad thing.
| [deleted]
| malachismith wrote:
| I love that it took facial expression software for people to
| understand this. All anyone had to do was talk to a dozen
| internationally competitive athletes to understand this. Happiest
| competitor is the one who wins. Second happiest is the one who
| finishes third. Third happiest is second. Fourth happiest are all
| the finalists who didn't medal and didn't take fourth. And fourth
| place... Yeah. Fourth place SUCKS.
| [deleted]
| m3kw9 wrote:
| Bronze medallist by the time the competition is near the end,
| usually compete just to get on podium, or they will feel a silver
| was lost instead of gold, but a podium was gained. Silver
| medalist usually compete for the gold near the end, a gold lost
| is a bigger loss, and a silver is a bad consolation.
| decebalus1 wrote:
| Of course they do [1]
|
| https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/bronze-medal
| steerablesafe wrote:
| So how do sports with single-elimination compare to other sports
| in this regard? In single-elimination bronze medalists finish on
| a high note, while silver medalists finish with a loss.
| Shmebulock wrote:
| This fits my personal experience very well.
|
| I was once a volunteer at the world championships of a team
| sport. At the podium sceremony my job was to lead the team to the
| spot where each player received their medal. The bronze medalists
| were super happy and smiling. Almost all silver medalists that I
| led to the podium were literally crying.
|
| No sophisticated facial recognition was needed to ascertain who
| was happier.
| necovek wrote:
| Medal ceremonies in team sports are usually after a bronze
| medal match (which bronze medalist won), and a gold medal match
| (which silver medalist _just_ lost).
| nerdponx wrote:
| In addition to the "last match" effect mentioned in the thread,
| I wonder if this has to do with who wins which medal. Maybe the
| people winning bronze are more often doing better than they
| expected, while the people winning silver are more likely to
| expect that they might have been able to win gold.
| hprotagonist wrote:
| The old joke: "And remember, second place is first loser!"
| JamilD wrote:
| I'm very skeptical about the veracity and accuracy of facial
| recognition software to detect emotions.
|
| I went to an affective computing conference in 2019 and was
| underwhelmed; models couldn't distinguish between looking upwards
| (and raising your eyebrows) from exhibiting surprise. Emotions
| are complex and personal, and the phrase from the article "facial
| expression software -- which nearly eliminates possible bias"
| seems absolutely ludicrous to me.
|
| I take results like this with an absolutely massive grain of
| salt, and don't expect them to be reproducible.
|
| The danger is that they're "catchy", clickbait-y results, that
| are popular because people like to hypothesize about underlying
| psychological reasons why those bronze medalists might be
| happier. But let's examine the core claim first, and not take
| facial recognition software as a ground truth for emotional
| state.
| rank0 wrote:
| Excellent point. People need to be more skeptical of novel
| technology in general. I mean, the big proponents of any new
| technology usually have a financial incentive to over sell its
| capabilities. I've noticed that with AI/ML especially people
| are willing to hand-wave away nuance and blindly believe that
| anything is possible. In reality AI is mostly iterative pattern
| matching and is far from perfect.
|
| In this case however, I do believe that bronze medalists are
| happier than silver medalists provided that all the
| participants had a similar probability of victory.
| necovek wrote:
| > I do believe that bronze medalists are happier than silver
| medalists provided that all the participants had a similar
| probability of victory.
|
| But that's never the case: betting companies are good at
| earning money off of that.
| rflrob wrote:
| In this case, however, there is evidently prior research using
| humans judging the faces that shows similar results. There
| definitely are all kinds of biases that could creep in from
| using facial recognition software, but a well designed study
| will attempt to quantify and control for those biases.
|
| I definitely agree that the idea that software eliminates bias
| is laughable. Swaps it for another, hopefully less extreme set
| of biases doesn't draw as many clicks, though.
| kapp_in_life wrote:
| >prior research using humans judging the faces that shows
| similar results
|
| I always assumed that was generally what the models were
| trained from, are they not? Agree though that ai will just
| replicate the bias in the training data, which is why its
| important to have "bias free" data. Or at least as much as
| such a thing exists.
| pugworthy wrote:
| Funny enough there's a meme that illustrates the findings.
| omoikane wrote:
| This is replicating a 1995 research, the new bit here appears to
| be the use of software to analyze facial expressions.
| golemiprague wrote:
| That's actually good since most psychological research is not
| replicated and many times when they try to replicate the
| results are different.
| agumonkey wrote:
| `better than nothing > so closed to win` I guess
| andi999 wrote:
| In high school there was a kid who got all A except one B. First
| I thought they must be very happy. Then I thought again....
| rejectedandsad wrote:
| That was me. I wasn't happy at all after I got 2nd.
| duxup wrote:
| In my experience nobody fretted about grades and minor grading
| issues more than the folks who had high marks.
|
| The burden of perfection (or close to it) is pretty brutal.
|
| Among other topics the film Gattaca seemed to address that
| issue.
| userbinator wrote:
| The effect is also strengthened when you're competing with
| your peers for grades; it's been several decades now but I
| still remember someone beating me by 0.7% going into the
| final exam, and me finishing the course 0.1% ahead of him.
| It's interesting I still remember the differences, but not
| the grade (high 90s, probably) nor the course.
|
| (Contrary to popular western culture, there are groups who
| enjoy "grade-racing" --- and from first-hand experience, I
| can say it was very motivational as well as stressful.)
| piyh wrote:
| Taking the "good enough" approach in life has probably left a
| lot of potential on the table, but it really has gotten the
| maximal utility out of any work I put in. It's probably
| ~50%-100% more work to go from a B+ in life to a straight A.
| rurp wrote:
| The opportunity costs can be profound as well. Doing B
| rather than A level work on many tasks can allow you to get
| 2-3x more things done.
| Buttons840 wrote:
| Like worrying about the first tiny scratch on your new car or
| new phone. Eventually it happens, you feel bad, but then are
| free from the burden of perfection.
| david422 wrote:
| One of the nice things about buying used. Not only do you
| get the discount, but you also don't need to worry about
| that perfection.
| duxup wrote:
| I have bought a lot of my kids toys second hand. "Yeah
| whatever throw that thing and see what happens!"
| Xophmeister wrote:
| I got a distinction for my masters thesis, but my exam results
| where such that I was 1-2% off from a distinction overall. I
| was not happy that day!
| jhgb wrote:
| I was that guy in college. It's an OCD-triggering experience,
| looking at the transcript. Can confirm that it's not a good
| feeling.
| xhkkffbf wrote:
| If you adjust for population growth and the growth of the games,
| it's clear that we should be giving medals to more than just the
| top three. And the results have gotten even closer. When I see
| someone like Torri Huske miss a medal by a hundredths of seconds,
| I think that something is just wrong.
|
| There should be medals going down much lower in the results.
| dogma1138 wrote:
| That's true for some events, baseball has 6 teams competing so
| if you copied say MOBA's/RTS's and have bronze, silver, gold,
| platinum and diamond you'll have what 5 out of 6 teams getting
| a medal?
|
| Medals aren't everything passing the qualifiers is an
| achievement on its own...
| Apocryphon wrote:
| What metals would those runner-up medals be made of?
| GloriousKoji wrote:
| Aluminum, glass, plastic and cardboard.
| otherme123 wrote:
| The fourth place is sometimes called "chocolate medal". But
| if IRC, 4 to 8 get an olympic diploma.
| protomyth wrote:
| Also, in bracket events, the bronze medalists won their last
| match while the silver medalists lost their's.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| Makes sense, bronze medallist are just happy to be on the podium
| whereas silver medallists usually messed up slightly, or even
| worse are simply slightly worse than the top dog, which prevented
| them from getting the gold.
| heroHACK17 wrote:
| tl;dr:
|
| Silver: "Shit... I was so close to Gold." Bronze: "Damn, I
| medaled!"
| xt00 wrote:
| This seems logical, especially if the person who got bronze was
| not expecting to get higher. If the person who had gotten gold
| previously got bronze they probably are not going to be feeling
| this way so, so a bit of an expectations game too potentially..
| bombcar wrote:
| If you take some simple theory - say that the top five people
| will be roughly the same across any tries, and three will
| metal, then the bronze medal winner is likely to be someone
| who wasn't certain they could medal at all.
| jb775 wrote:
| Probably because mentally bronze is 1 place away from not being a
| medalist while silver is 1 place away from being best in the
| world.
| croes wrote:
| How often was the bronze winner a surprise winner or a runner up
| and gold and silver winners the favorites?
| agnosticmantis wrote:
| My prediction: Soon this is going to be generalized and percolate
| into all sorts of self-help books and pop psy TED talks: why less
| is more, you need to lose to win, etc.
| crb wrote:
| Confirming research done by Jerry Seinfeld in 1998:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xK9rbwM3omA
| [deleted]
| locallost wrote:
| I did not see any mention of the type of sports they analysed. I
| think it makes a big difference, e.g. winning silver in a
| tournament type competition like basketball means you lost your
| last game, whereas winning bronze means you won your last game.
| On the other hand a 100 meter dash is 8 people racing all at the
| same time, so winning silver does not feel like losing gold as
| much to me. You still beat out the bronze medalist in direct
| competition.
|
| edit: but of course, it's also common that there are two big
| names in a competition, so winning silver in that case means you
| lost gold.
| buran77 wrote:
| Due to the 3 place podium, regardless of the type of
| competition second place looks like narrowly missing a total
| win, while third place looks like narrowly missing a total
| loss. People tend to look at the alternative to decide their
| relative feelings.
|
| It's why even tragic situations can be an opportunity to be
| happy because the alternative is even worse, while some happy
| situations can be disappointing because they could have been so
| much better. Or the stock market where a modest win that could
| have been huge might feel worse than a loss that could have
| been huge.
| [deleted]
| bragh wrote:
| Yes, IIRC, for Formula One there was a saying ages ago that the
| 3 most unhappy participants after a race are 2nd place (did not
| win), 4th place (did not get to be on the podium) and 7th place
| (did not get any points).
|
| edit: Now I looked at it again and I see that F1 has adjusted
| their points system throughout the following years, so you need
| to replace the 7th place with whatever is relevant now.
| tome wrote:
| I remember the same. It seems we're nearly 20 years out of
| date! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Formula_One_World
| _Cham...
| DC-3 wrote:
| 11th is the current equivalent.
| notjustanymike wrote:
| They simplified F1 a bit. Now the most unhappy participants
| are Haas.
| [deleted]
| irrational wrote:
| What do you mean by Haas?
| Scown wrote:
| It's one of the Formula 1 teams
| skytreader wrote:
| Just a bit more context that might explain why Haas might
| be the unhappy ones currently. There's a lot of capital-D
| Drama surrounding the team right now but I'll stick to
| these two facts:
|
| - Due to financial reasons they had to let go their
| veteran drivers (just two in F1) from last season and are
| currently featuring an all-rookie line up.
|
| - They've gone on record to say that they are not
| developing the 2021 car, instead focusing on the specs
| change for 2022.
|
| So two rookies in a team that is basically just in the
| competition for the participation. At least one driver
| from Williams, the bottom feeders a season or two ago,
| have the chutzpah to aim for points finish this year.
| Haas can't be a fulfilling team to be in right now.
| JshWright wrote:
| Oh, and one of their rookie drivers sexually assaulted a
| woman and posted it on Instagram...
| bluthund wrote:
| Watch an F1 race, look at the leaderboard, look for the
| bottom 2 positions.
|
| That's Haas
| throwawayboise wrote:
| I'd go along with that. 2nd place == first loser. Bronze is
| still top 3, more recognition than the rest of the field.
| 6gvONxR4sf7o wrote:
| I don't have a source, but I think I remember seeing something
| about this in the context of a study about olympic swimming,
| back in my swimming days, for what little that's worth.
| darth_avocado wrote:
| I mean isn't it obvious? Third place is great because you
| narrowly avoided winning no medals, but second place isn't
| because you narrowly avoided winning the first place.
| seanalltogether wrote:
| Yes exactly, the style of competition can certainly affect your
| perception of the results. For example, in foot race with
| multiple participants, the silver medalist might be happy with
| second, because they know they dug in deep and barely beat out
| the bronze medalist at the finish line. Whereas in archery
| since you are competing in isolation of the other contestants,
| the silver medalist might be annoyed that the one shot in round
| 3 cost them the chance for the gold.
| bumby wrote:
| I never v thought of it that way, but your reminds me of Daniel
| Kahneman's work regarding how people remember their own
| experiences. Regardless of how well things went during the
| entire duration of the activity, the last experience was
| disproportionately weighted in terms of framing the memory. In
| that context, it makes sense why the tournament style silver
| medalists would be more dissatisfied.
|
| "We suggest that patients' memories of painful medical
| procedures largely reflect the intensity of pain at the worst
| part and at the final part of the experience."[1]
|
| [1]
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/030439...
| dp-hackernews wrote:
| Um, isn't that the obvious statement of the century? Perhaps even
| more obvious than "Computer confirms, gold medalist happier than
| silver medalist" Of course, silver LOST to gold, and bronze WON
| something better than nothing...
| petermcneeley wrote:
| "Are you color blind too Vincent? Its silver. Jerome Morrow was
| never meant to be one step down on the podium. With all I had
| going for me I was still just second best." - Gattaca
| omot wrote:
| I heard something similar for management. In an org chart ICs and
| very top executives are the happiest. Middle management tend to
| be the most miserable.
| Cd00d wrote:
| Interesting. I think middle management is more stressful
| because your job is to execute on business goal, but your
| influence is still limited. There's too much out of your
| control to feel confident in success or that the failures are
| solely due to your own decision processes.
| whoisjuan wrote:
| You don't need a study to understand this. Generally speaking
| getting silver means that you were fighting to get gold and you
| couldn't make it. Getting bronze means that you were fighting to
| be in the podium and you made it.
|
| Again, this is a very general appreciation but it's likely the
| case for most athletes. In the Olympics you already know before
| hand who is a favorite and who is an underdog. Of course the
| athletes are self-aware enough to understand this as well.
| renewiltord wrote:
| It's only 400 photos. They could have used human beings rather
| than AI. The result is probably bunkum.
| GloriousKoji wrote:
| Cornell University already did that over a decade ago so the
| conclusion that bronze medalist appear happier is probably true
| as the human and AI models got the same results.
| viztor wrote:
| People who won Bronze might never thought they were going to win
| anything at all.
|
| People who win Silver generally went after the Gold.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-07-30 23:00 UTC) |