Reacting to the tyranny of merit?
As we move on from the Australian Open and into the Six Nations, there are similarities in the overriding sentiment – but now it's ‘anyone but England’ rather than ‘anyone but Djokovic’. Although Djokovic's unpopularity can be easily passed off as a reaction to sustained dominance (and rejection of evidence-based medicine) that didn’t seem to waiver the support for Manchester United.
A poll from 6 years ago (pre Covid controversy) highlights Djokovic’s unpopularity compared to other recent Tennis greats – securing just 6% of a vote on preference. And even with a more objective evaluation – tennis fans were over six times more likely to choose Federer as the greatest player of all time. At the time of the poll, both had 20 grand slams...
The reason for this may lie in our perception and preference in one of the most clichéd dichotomies in sport narratives – the hard worker vs the natural talent. Although overly simplistic – no professional sportsman hasn’t worked hard to be where they are – there may be an element of validity in categorising athletes into the pure, primal, natural talent, and the striving, first-on-last-off, machine. Unromantically, this is a statistical phenomenon.
The graphs above plot the hypothetical distribution of talent and hard work for the top 200 tennis players. These data are randomly generated and assume a normal distribution across both traits. Although the two traits are uncorrelated – when selecting for the top ten, the two traits ‘collide’ upon selection, and a spurious correlation is revealed.
If you imagine the simplest model of sporting performance being a function of innate talent and hard work – then when selecting the top performers, these two traits will necessarily be negatively correlated. As we tend to be evaluating (selecting for) the very top performers, amongst them you would expect those with the most natural gifts to be the least hard-working, and vice versa. In statistical parlance – this is known as the collider bias. And the apparent negative correlation between these traits encourages us to bucket athletes into these personas.
Djokovic: a natural or a striver?
Djokovic’s daily routine is almost mythologised. He starts the day with a glass of warm water and lemon – because cold water slows down digestion and diverts blood away from his muscles. This is followed by two spoonsful of New Zealand Manuka honey (something about antibacterial properties), yoga and meditation to improve breathing capacity and endurance, and Tai Chi to increase his flexibility, balance, and agility.
All this before training begins. And it ends with time spent in his fitness pod, a chamber that helps increase blood circulation throughout the body and aid muscle recovery. It screams a striver, not a natural.
A real photo of 'Novak Djokovic meditating on top of a mountain drinking a green smoothie'
Who do we prefer?
Why do we favour one over the other? Because we do; aside from Djokovic vs Federer, there is cult-like love for Gascoigne and Flintoff, and perhaps even Messi over Ronaldo reflects the perception of more natural gifts. We would rather see our sports heroes photographed at the bar than with barbells. You know, just like one of us…
Our tendency to prefer people perceived as naturals – possessing high innate ability – over people perceived as strivers – possessing ability derived through hard work, is well evidenced. Experiments have shown that musicians described as naturals were preferred to those described as strivers, and the same effect is seen with the ratings of business proposals produced by entrepreneurs. The bias doesn’t just impact regular punters; the magnitude of the naturalness bias is more pronounced for raters with higher levels of (so-called) expertise.
This has important implications – beyond the realm of sports, our naturalness bias can incur significant costs through its influence on recruitment and investment decision-making. In an experiment asking participants to select between entrepreneurs to invest in, experts were willing to invest in entrepreneurs with poorer intelligence test scores (30 IQ points), fewer years of leadership experience (4.47 years), and less in accrued capital (£24,865) – simply because they were said to have reached their current success through their natural talent.
Such evidence from across other domains suggests it is likely the same bias pervades our preference for athletes. Ronaldo and Zinchenko are doing themselves no favours in their popularity contests against Messi and Tomiyasu by emphasising the role of hard work in their success.
Why does naturalness bias exist?
Malcolm Gladwell suggests the naturalness bias reflects a fundamental belief that that the closer something is to its original state, the less altered or adulterated it is, the more desirable it is. But that’s Malcolm Gladwell…and as such, there is no real evidence for this.
So, let me put forward an equally unsubstantiated claim – that our preference for natural talent is a response to the tyranny of merit oppressing WEIRD societies. The neoliberal dystopia that developed in the late 20th/early 21st century is ideologically underpinned by a meritocratic ideal (it makes it easier to justify our inequalities), and our meritocratic faith enforces the idea that our success is our own doing – we succeed and fail based on our merits – we get what we deserve.
When comparing ourselves to those that succeed through the lens of this meritocratic myth – and it is a myth – we are left we two options: was my failure due to my lack of hard work, or my inadequate natural talents?
I can get up at 4am, drink warm water, and refuse medical intervention against the interests of my country; Djokovic’s (and other strivers’) success serve as a stark reminder that my failure is my own fault – if only I put more effort in! On the other hand, I could never have had Federer's backhand, poise, or hair – so why bother?
In effect, the popularity of Federer, and our naturalness bias, reflects a broader reaction to how success is afforded. Yes, our heroic sporting naturals who opt for a pint over protein could be one of us, but at the same time we could never have been one of them. And I take comfort in that.
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