The overconfidence effect is a well documented bias in which a person's subjective confidence in their own judgments is reliably greater than the objective accuracy of those judgments, particularly when the questions are difficult or the person's actual knowledge is limited. It has been studied in experiments asking participants to answer factual questions and to state how confident they are in their answers, which repeatedly show that people's stated confidence, such as being ninety percent certain, exceeds their actual hit rate at that confidence level. The effect has been examined across domains including medical diagnosis, financial forecasting and eyewitness testimony, and it is distinguished from the related but narrower overplacement, the tendency specifically to rate oneself as better than other people.
Facts
Core ClaimResearchers distinguish three distinct forms of the bias: overestimation of one's actual performance, overplacement of one's performance relative to others, and overprecision, unwarranted certainty that one's beliefs are accurate. 2 First Described Year Classification
Type of Phenomenon Connections
In Branch
Source Wikipedia: Overconfidence effect
Open Questions
Source Wikipedia: Overconfidence effect
Sources
1. APS Observer: Studies in Swollen Heads, What Causes Overconfidence
opening paragraph
Everybody knows a blowhard. Overconfident bosses and colleagues are ubiquitous, and dealing with them is a life skill most people simply learn to endure.
lead section, phenomenon-kind classification
The overconfidence effect is a cognitive bias in which a person's subjective confidence in their judgments is reliably greater than the objective accuracy of those judgments, especially when confidence is relatively high.
View the Source2. Wikipedia: Overconfidence effect
Wikimedia Foundationdefinitions subsection, three forms of overconfidence
Throughout the research literature, overconfidence has been defined in three distinct ways: (1) overestimation of one's actual performance; (2) overplacement of one's performance relative to others; and (3) overprecision in expressing unwarranted certainty in the accuracy of one's beliefs.
- History section, Alpert and Raiffa (1969) first study
In Branch: Cognitive Psychology, Categories
Wikipedia article 'Overconfidence effect' is filed under Category:Memory biases.
View the Source Open Questions (1 open question)
In what year was the overconfidence effect first identified or named as a distinct phenomenon in the psychological literature?
The surveyed Wikipedia article names three component forms, overestimation, overplacement and overprecision, and cites many later studies, but states no founding study or coining year for the overconfidence effect itself, unlike the other five entities worked this pass which each name a clear year.
What would resolve this A citation to the earliest peer-reviewed study or review naming and defining the overconfidence effect as a distinct phenomenon, rather than one of its three later-named component forms.
history of psychologyWikipedia: Overconfidence effect
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