Some advice is better than others. It can be more true, or it can be more relevant to the challenges in question. This is simple to determine and filter.

What makes advice tricky is its nature. There exists directive advice, that being to suggest a direct and unambiguous course of action, and reflective advice, that being a framework for the individual to select their own choices.

The applicability of each type of advice depends not on the subject at hand, for every problem requires choices and reflection, but on the level of support the person has. Namely, whether the individual has the relevant mentorship and resources to distill that advice into a positive impact on their life.

I believe that in a lower-resource environment, direct advice should always be given. And in a higher-resource environment, reflective advice. People without external mentorship and space to reflect should be making choices that do not depend on those privileges. This sounds inequitable, but if executed correctly, it should lead to more equitable outcomes. It reduces the advantage of greater resources.

This is hard to explain without examples, so I’ll walk through two.

The planning of post-secondary education, commonly manifesting as university applications, is fraught with reflective advice. For each person’s situation, there exists a small set of optimal decisions[1]. Yet, they are often given vague, unactionable reflective advice. We tell students to follow their hearts and to arrive at their own conclusions. It doesn’t matter why we tell them this (and there are very good reasons), but it results in inequitable outcomes, especially across different socioeconomic backgrounds. Because in the absence of mentorship and support, the likelihood of making the optimal choice is greatly reduced. Some examples of directive advice can be found here[2].

Now, it is obvious that greater resources result in higher achievement(Ndlovu, 2018). What isn’t obvious is how to correct this. I am not saying that giving children “better advice” will solve achievement gaps; only around late high school (ie. grade 12 when people apply to university) does unrestricted decision-making take place on a large scale[3].

Another example is relationships (of all types, but mostly dating). Reflective advice is more palatable in a public setting, to avoid transgressions to feelings. Yet, even in private settings, reflective advice is often given. This can break down, as mentorship and resources can be harder to come by for relationships. It’s less measurable and economically important (on the surface level), so there’s no filter to ensure that advice is even accurate (which is normally achievable).

Unsurprisingly, this results in hugely disparate outcomes. Self-reflection is especially unreliable in matters vulnerable to bias and emotion. I have not said subjective, as nothing is subjective when it comes to decisions. To reiterate, when I talk about directive vs. reflective advice, I am referring to the process used to make the best decision for an already mature situation. For relationships, the science is clear that there are objective decisions to be made, even though it often feels spontaneous and transient.

Basically, I wish for more direct advice to be given to people who need it. And most of us need it in some areas of our lives, because resources and mentorship is finite.

Notes

[1] The Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum mechanics leads slightly more credence to this assertion than the Many-Worlds interpretation, but the result is essentially the same: some decisions will always result in better results than others, and the ability to discern them is usually present in our shared knowledge.

[2] Examples of directive advice for students considering university, shortened for brevity. Some will conflict with each other or not be true, as all advice risks being.

• Do not have a dream school. It will impact your mental health for no benefit. Attend the highest-ranked school you can comfortably afford.
• Do not attend a US university as an international student unless you are significantly wealthy. (Full rides aside, obviously)
• Do not pursue achievements for the sake of selective admissions. It does not work.
• Do not write sob essays. It does not work.
• Major does not matter as long as you actually plan your career effectively and gain work experience as early as possible.
• Do not limit your options to research universities.
• Going to community college first before transferring to a university should be avoided.
• Do not try to graduate early.
• Do not pursue academia as a career path if you are not certain you can handle it.

[3] Arguably, the most competitive university applicants are the ones who matured the earliest. The ones who start making important decisions later, even if they’re more intelligent/hardworking/passionate, will be at a disadvantage (or straight up eliminated, as elite schools often only accept directly out of high school.)

Ndlovu, N. (2018, April 10). School resources and student achievement: A study of primary schools in Zimbabwe. https://scite.ai/reports/10.5897/err2017.3293