Across a wide range of tasks, research has shown that people make poor probabilistic predictions of future events. Recently, the U.S. Intelligence Community sponsored a series of forecasting tournaments designed to explore the best strategies for generating accurate subjective probability estimates of geopolitical events. In this article, we describe the winning strategy: culling off top performers each year and assigning them into elite teams of superforecasters. Defying expectations of regression toward the mean 2 years in a row, superforecasters maintained high accuracy across hundreds of questions and a wide array of topics. We find support for four mutually reinforcing explanations of superforecaster performance: (a) cognitive abilities and styles, (b) task-specific skills, (c) motivation and commitment, and (d) enriched environments. These findings suggest that superforecasters are partly discovered and partly created-and that the high-performance incentives of tournaments highlight aspects of human judgment that would not come to light in laboratory paradigms focused on typical performance.

This article extends psychological methods and concepts into a domain that is as profoundly consequential as it is poorly understood: intelligence analysis. We report findings from a geopolitical forecasting tournament that assessed the accuracy of more than 150,000 forecasts of 743 participants on 199 events occurring over 2 years. Participants were above average in intelligence and political knowledge relative to the general population. Individual differences in performance emerged, and forecasting skills were surprisingly consistent over time. Key predictors were (a) dispositional variables of cognitive ability, political knowledge, and openmindedness; (b) situational variables of training in probabilistic reasoning and participation in collaborative teams that shared information and discussed rationales (Mellers, Ungar, et al., 2014); and (c) behavioral variables of deliberation time and frequency of belief updating. We developed a profile of the best forecasters; they were better at inductive reasoning, pattern detection, cognitive flexibility, and open-mindedness. They had greater understanding of geopolitics, training in probabilistic reasoning, and opportunities to succeed in cognitively enriched team environments. Last but not least, they viewed forecasting as a skill that required deliberate practice, sustained effort, and constant monitoring of current affairs. A t APA, we understand how challenging it can be for you to stay abreast of the latest and best academic research on psychology. Disciplines Finance and Financial Management | Social and Behavioral Sciences

Abstract[Excerpt] Educational reformers and most of the American public believe that most teachers ask too little of their pupils. These low expectations, they believe, result in watered down curricula and a tolerance of mediocre teaching and inappropriate student behavior. The result is that the prophecy of low achievement becomes self-fulfilling. Although research has shown that learning gains are substantially larger when students take more demanding courses2, only a minority of students enroll in these courses. There are several reasons for this. Guidance counselors in many schools allow only a select few into the most challenging courses. While most schools give students and parents the authority to overturn counselor recommendations, many families are unaware they have that power or are intimidated by the counselor's prediction of failure in the tougher class. As one student put it: "African-American parents, they settle for less, not knowing they can get more for their students. " This paper has not undergone formal review or approval of the faculty of the ILR School. It is intended to make results of Center research available to others interested in preliminary form to encourage discussion and suggestions. The Role of End-of-Course ExamsWorking Paper 00-09 Page 2Let us send a signal out to the world that the days of undereducating our young people, the days of underestimating our young people are over.--Hugh Price, President of the National Urban League, quoted in Education Week., July 14, 1999 1 I. THE PROBLEMEducational reformers and most of the American public believe that most teachers ask too little of their pupils. These low expectations, they believe, result in watered down curricula and a tolerance of mediocre teaching and inappropriate student behavior. The result is that the prophecy of low achievement becomes self-fulfilling.Although research has shown that learning gains are substantially larger when students take more demanding courses 2 , only a minority of students enroll in these courses. There are several reasons for this. Guidance counselors in many schools allow only a select few into the most challenging courses. While most schools give students and parents the authority to overturn counselor recommendations, many families are unaware they have that power or are intimidated by the counselor's prediction of failure in the tougher class. As one student put it:"African-American parents, they settle for less, not knowing they can get more for their students." Consequently, the bulk of students who do not aspire to attend selective colleges quite rationally avoid rigorous courses and demanding teachers.When teachers try to set high standards, they often get pressured to go easy. The following story is from southern Texas in the early 1980s. This story is not an isolated example. Thirty percent of American teachers say they "feel pressure to give higher grades than students' work deserves." Thirty percent also feel pressured "to reduce the difficulty and amount of work you assign."9 The Ro...

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