Confidence depends on level of aggregation

The credible intervals that people set around their point estimates are typically too narrow (cf. Lichtenstein, Fischhoff, & Phillips, 1982). That is, a set of many such intervals does not contain the actual values of the criterion variables as often as it should given the probability assigned to this event for each estimate. The typical interpretation of such data is that people are overconfident about the accuracy of their judgments. This paper presents data from two studies showing the typical levels of overconfidence for individual estimates of unknown quantities. However, data from the same subjects on a different measure of confidence for the same items, their own global assessment for the set of multiple estimates as a whole, showed significantly lower levels of confidence and overconfidence than their average individual assessment for items in the set. It is argued that the event and global assessments of judgment quality are fundamentally different and are affected by unique psychological processes. Finally, we discuss the implications of a difference between confidence in single and multiple estimates for confidence research and theory.     

“过分自信”的研究及其跨文化差异

“过分自信”是一种偏离校准,是指人们关于一般知识问题的概率判断通常以某种方式偏离校准,这种偏离都偏高。跨文化系列研究表明：面对常识和概率判断问题,集体主义文化成员（如中国人）比个体主义文化成员（如美国人）更过分自信。文章在简要回顾“过分自信”研究的基础上,对“过分自信”的跨文化差异及原因进行了比较详细地介绍,并对“过分自信”跨文化差异研究的进一步发展和实际应用进行讨论。冀对以往的研究做初步的归纳和总结,促进决策领域中跨文化比较方面的研究得到进一步发展     

True Overconfidence in Interval Estimates: Evidence Based on a New Measure of Miscalibration

Overconfidence is often regarded as one of the most prevalent judgment biases. Several studies show that overconfidence can lead to suboptimal decisions of investors, managers, or politicians. Recent research, however, questions whether overconfidence should be regarded as a bias and shows that standard “overconfidence” findings can easily be explained by different degrees of knowledge of agents plus a random error in predictions. We contribute to the current literature and ongoing research by extensively analyzing interval estimates for knowledge questions, for real financial time series, and for artificially generated charts. We thereby suggest a new method to measure overconfidence in interval estimates, which is based on the implied probability mass behind a stated prediction interval. We document overconfidence patterns, which are difficult to reconcile with rationality of agents and which cannot be explained by differences in knowledge as differences in knowledge do not exist in our task. Furthermore, we show that overconfidence measures are reliable in the sense that there exist stable individual differences in the degree of overconfidence in interval estimates, thereby testing an important assumption of behavioral economics and behavioral finance models: stable individual differences in the degree of overconfidence across people. We do this in a “field experiment,” for different levels of expertise of subjects (students on the one hand and professional traders and investment bankers on the other hand), over time, by using different miscalibration metrics, and for tasks that avoid common weaknesses such as a non‐representative selection of trick questions. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

When overconfidence is revealed to others: Testing the status-enhancement theory of overconfidence

The status-enhancement theory of overconfidence proposes that overconfidence pervades self-judgment because it helps people attain higher social status. Prior work has found that highly confident individuals attained higher status regardless of whether their confidence was justified by actual ability ( Anderson, Brion, Moore, & Kennedy, 2012). However, those initial findings were observed in contexts where individuals’ actual abilities were unlikely to be discovered by others. What happens to overconfident individuals when others learn how good they truly are at the task? If those individuals are penalized with status demotions, then the status costs might outweigh the status benefits of overconfidence – thereby casting doubt on the benefits of overconfidence. In three studies, we found that group members did not react negatively to individuals revealed as overconfident, and in fact still viewed them positively. Therefore, the status benefits of overconfidence outweighed any possible status costs, lending further support to the status-enhancement theory.     

The psychology of being a beginner

Beginners are plagued with overconfidence. They perform the worst on tests of knowledge or skill and yet are the most overconfident. One would expect that learning would better calibrate beginners and lead to better quality decisions. However, learning can instead produce overconfidence. In this article I discuss how being beginner can lead to errors in self-assessments and riskier decisions. I review differences in beginner overconfidence in several places in the literature. First, the Dunning–Kruger Effect, which finds those with the least knowledge are the most overconfident. To be sure, beginners can range from rank beginners, those who have acquired no knowledge, to experienced beginners, beginners who having gained some but not vast knowledge. Next, I discuss the beginner's bubble that follows the trajectory of confidence and overconfidence as people transition from rank to experienced beginners. The beginner's bubble pattern finds rank beginners have insight into their poor abilities. However, with some learning there is a surge of confidence and overconfidence. Lastly, I explore differences in confidence and overconfidence as learners transition from rank to experienced beginners in other places in the literature.     

先前情绪和过度自信对灾难事件后继风险决策的影响

研究考察了先前情绪和过度自信对灾难事件后继风险决策的影响。结果发现：(1)先前情绪的主效应显著, 积极情绪比消极情绪的个体在灾后风险决策时更加倾向于风险寻求;过度自信的主效应显著, 高过度自信比低过度自信个体在灾后风险决策时更加倾向于风险寻求。(2)先前情绪和过度自信水平交互影响灾难事件后继风险决策。高过度自信者在积极情绪状态下比在消极情绪状态下更倾向于风险寻求; 消极情绪状态下过度自信水平不同的个体之间没有显著差异。     

Persistent overconfidence despite practice: The role of task experience in preschoolers’ recall predictions

In three experiments, preschoolers’ ability to predict their picture recall was examined. Children studied 10 pictures, predicted how many they would recall, and then attempted to recall them. This study-prediction-recall trial was repeated multiple times with new pictures on each trial. In Experiment 1, children were overconfident on the initial trial, and this overconfidence persisted across three trials. In Experiment 2, children predicted either their own performance or another child’s performance. Their predictions were overconfident across all trials regardless of whether they made predictions for themselves or for another child, suggesting that wishful thinking cannot fully account for their overconfidence. In Experiment 3, some children postdicted their previous recall performance prior to making each prediction. Although their postdictions were quite accurate, their predictions were still overconfident across five trials. Preschoolers’ overconfidence was remarkably resistant to the repeated experience of recalling fewer pictures than the children had predicted. Even asking them to report the number that they recalled on a previous trial, which they could do accurately, did not cause them to lower their predictions across trials.     

Individual differences in higher-level cognitive abilities do not predict overconfidence in complex task performance

Even when people perform tasks poorly, they often report unrealistically positive estimates of their own abilities in these situations. To better understand the origins of such overconfidence, we investigated whether it could be predicted by individual differences in working memory, attentional control, and self-reported trait impulsivity. Overconfidence was estimated by contrasting objective and subjective measures of situation awareness (the ability to perceive and understand task-relevant information in the environment), acquired during a challenging air traffic control simulation. We found no significant relationships between overconfidence and either working memory or attentional control. However, increased impulsivity significantly predicted greater overconfidence. In addition, overall levels of overconfidence were lower in our complex task than in previous studies that used less-complex lab-based tasks. Our results suggest that overconfidence may not be linked to high-level cognitive abilities, but that dynamic tasks with frequent opportunities for performance feedback may reduce misconceptions about personal performance.     

时距估计中的锚定效应

采用两种时距估计方法,检验时距锚定值对时距估计的影响,并探讨了时距信息的心理表征方式。63名在校大学生参加了本次实验。实验1采用口头报告法,表明较大的时距锚定值（5s,5000ms）条件下,被试估对时距的估计值较大,而较小时距锚定值（1s,1000ms）条件下被试估计的时距值较小;语义相同但表述方式不同的锚定值（1s与1000ms,5s与5000ms）条件下的时距估计值没有显著差异。实验2采用产生法,进一步表明时距表述方式对产生时距没有显著影响。以上结果表明,时距估计受时距锚定值的影响,时距信息可能以语义形式进行表征,而不是简单的数字加单位的表层表征形式     

过度自信的跨文化差异

过度自信是指个体过高地估计自身判断的精确度,其经典的研究范式是常识问题及常识问题的变式现实情境问题。使用常识问题的研究一致发现,东方人显著比西方人更过度自信;使用现实情景问题的研究则发现,西方人比东方人更过度自信或两者无显著性差异。对“东方人比西方人过度自信”的解释包括认知习惯和教育系统两种主流观点。最后对出现不同研究结果的原因进行讨论,并进一步探讨解释的有效性和“西方人比东方人过度自信”的原因。     

Unskilled but aware: reinterpreting overconfidence in low-performing students

People are generally overconfident in their self-assessments and this overconfidence effect is greatest for people of poorer abilities. For example, poor students predict that they will perform much better on exams than they do. One explanation for this result is that poor performers in general are doubly cursed: They lack knowledge of the material, and they lack awareness of the knowledge that they do and do not possess. The current studies examined whether poor performers in the classroom are truly unaware of their deficits by examining the relationship between students' exam predictions and their confidence in these predictions. Relative to high-performing students, the poorer students showed a greater overconfidence effect (i.e., their predictions were greater than their performance), but they also reported lower confidence in these predictions. Together, these results suggest that poor students are indeed unskilled but that they may have some awareness of their lack of metacognitive knowledge.     

过度自信的研究展望

过度自信是个体高估自身判断精确度的一种认知偏差。过高估计和过高定位作为过度自信的两种主要类型被认为是个体在评价其绝对能力和相对能力时的表现。一般认为信息加工的偏差与判断误差的无偏性是造成过高估计的主要原因。自我提升动机、权重差异与信息的差异被认为是产生过高定位的原因。但是过度自信的这两种类型却在不同难度的任务巾出现了分离现象。最近,研究者提出了贝叶斯过度自信,用贝叶斯推理对不同任务中二者的分离进行了整合。过度自信产生的原因和内在心理机制、过度自信对决策的影响以及过度自信中的个体差异研究将会成为该领域日后研究的趋势。     

The domain specificity and generality of overconfidence: Individual differences in performance estimation bias

One hundred twenty-three college students performed a knowledge assessment task and a game of motor skill in which they had to predict their performance before each block of trials. There was a bias in the direction of overconfidence on both tasks, even though the latter involved the motor domain, did not require the use of numeric probabilities, and allowed predictions to be made by using an aggregate judgment made in a frequentist mode. An analysis of individual differences indicated that there was considerable domain specificity in confidence judgments. However, participants who persevered in showing overconfidence in the motor task—despite previous feedback revealing their overconfident performance predictions—were significantly more overconfident in the knowledge calibration task than were participants who moderated their motor performance predictions so as to remove their bias toward overconfidence. The latter finding is consistent with explanations of overconfidence effects that implicate mechanisms with some degree of domain generality.     

The overconfidence effect in social prediction

In five studies with overlapping designs and intents, subjects predicted a specific peer's responses to a variety of stimulus situations, each of which offered a pair of mutually exclusive and exhaustive response alternatives. Each prediction was accompanied by a subjective probability estimate reflecting the subjects' confidence in its accuracy--a measure validated in Study 5 by having subjects choose whether to "gamble" on the accuracy of their prediction or on the outcome of a simple aleatory event. Our primary finding was that in social prediction, as in other judgmental domains, subjects consistently proved to be highly overconfident. That is, regardless of the type of prediction item (e.g., responses to hypothetical dilemmas, responses to contrived laboratory situations, or self-reports of everyday behaviors) and regardless of the type of information available about the person whose responses they were predicting (e.g., predictions about roommates or predictions based on prior interviews), the levels of accuracy subjects achieved fell considerably below the levels required to justify their confidence levels. Further analysis revealed two specific sources of overconfidence. First, subjects generally were overconfident to the extent they were highly confident. Second, subjects were most likely to be overconfident when they knowingly or unknowingly made predictions that ran counter to the relevant response base rates and, as a consequence, achieved low accuracy rates that their confidence estimates failed to anticipate. Theoretical and normative implications are discussed and proposals for subsequent research offered.     

Confidently Biased: Comparisons with Anchors Bias Estimates and Increase Confidence

Across a wide variety of situations, exposure to anchors has been shown to bias people's estimates. What is not known, however, is whether externally provided anchors influence the confidence that people have in their estimates. Our studies had two goals. First, we tested whether exposure to anchors influenced people's subjective confidence levels (Studies 1 and 2). These studies revealed that people who made estimates after making comparisons with externally provided anchors tended to be more confident in their estimates than people who did not see anchors. The second goal was to test two explanations as to why anchors increase people's confidence. In Study 3, we tested the explanation that anchors increase confidence because participants thought the anchors provided useful information. In Study 4, we tested the explanation that exposure to anchors causes people to consider a narrower range of plausible values as compared to when not exposed to anchors. Support was found only for the explanation that comparisons with anchors increase confidence because people who are exposed to anchors consider a narrower range of plausible values. Taken together, these studies reveal the powerful influence anchors can have—they not only bias estimates, but also increase people's confidence in their biased estimates. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Overconfidence and the Big Five

It has been consistently observed that people are generally overconfident when assessing their performance. In the current study, participants completed Goldberg's Big Five personality inventory and then completed a cognitive task designed to assess overconfidence (defined as the difference between confidence and accuracy). Extraversion significantly predicted overconfidence (with the other Big Five factors controlled statistically). In addition, openness/intellectance significantly predicted confidence and accuracy but not overconfidence (again, with the other Big Five factors controlled statistically). Theoretical implications and implications for future research are discussed.     

Improving metacognitive accuracy: How failing to retrieve practice items reduces overconfidence

People often exhibit inaccurate metacognitive monitoring. For example, overconfidence occurs when people judge that they will remember more information on a future test then they actually do. The present experiments examined whether a small number of retrieval practice opportunities would improve participants’ metacognitive accuracy by reducing overconfidence. Participants studied Lithuanian–English paired associates and predicted their performance on an upcoming memory test. Then they attempted to retrieve one or more practice items (or none in the control condition) and made a second prediction. Experiment 1 showed that failing to retrieve a single practice item lead to improved subsequent performance predictions – participants became less overconfident. Experiment 2 directly manipulated retrieval failure and showed that again failure to retrieve a single practice item significantly improved subsequent predictions, relative to when participants successfully retrieved the practice item. Finally, Experiment 3 showed that additional retrieval practice opportunities reduced overconfidence and improved prediction accuracy.     

Overconfidence in an objective anticipatory motor task

Overconfidence can place humans in hazardous situations, and yet it has been observed in a variety of cognitive tasks in which participants have to rate their own performance. We demonstrate here that overconfidence can be revealed in a natural and objective visuo-motor task. Participants were asked to press a key in synchrony with a predictable visual event and were rewarded if they succeeded and sometimes penalized if they were too quick or too slow. If they had used their own motor uncertainty in anticipating the timing of the visual stimulus, they would have maximized their gain. However, they instead displayed an overconfidence in the sense that they underestimated the magnitude of their uncertainty and the cost of their error. Therefore, overconfidence is not limited to subjective ratings in cognitive tasks, but rather appears to be a general characteristic of human decision making.     

Power and overconfident decision-making

Five experiments demonstrate that experiencing power leads to overconfident decision-making. Using multiple instantiations of power, including an episodic recall task (Experiments 1–3), a measure of work-related power (Experiment 4), and assignment to high- and low-power roles (Experiment 5), power produced overconfident decisions that generated monetary losses for the powerful. The current findings, through both mediation and moderation, also highlight the central role that the sense of power plays in producing these decision-making tendencies. First, sense of power, but not mood, mediated the link between power and overconfidence (Experiment 3). Second, the link between power and overconfidence was severed when access to power was not salient to the powerful (Experiment 4) and when the powerful were made to feel personally incompetent in their domain of power (Experiment 5). These findings indicate that only when objective power leads people to feel subjectively powerful does it produce overconfident decision-making.     

Peer Input and Revised Judgment: Exploring the Effects of (Un) Biased Confidence1

An experiment was conducted to test the effects of biased versus unbiased peer input on the revised judgments of others. After completing a set of knowledge items and assessing their confidence in each answer, subjects were: (a) given written input (in the form of answers and confidence assessments) from a peer who had completed the same set of items, and (b) allowed to revise their earlier answers and confidence assessments. Peer input was either overconfident, underconfident, or appropriately confident. Relative to appropriately confident input, both overconfident and underconfident input caused subjects’ accuracy in judgment to suffer. Overconfident input was particularly harmful because it led to more extreme overconfidence without any increase in accuracy. Practical implications of these results are discussed.