Overconfidence

Overestimation of oneself , sometimes distortion of presumption , is a form of systematic misjudgment of one's own abilities and competencies .

In science, self-overestimation is mostly examined and thematized under the terms hubris or, in English, Hubris within psychology , medicine and in organizational and management research. In behavioral economics ( behavioral economics ), the hubris ( overconfidence bias , English overconfidence, bias overconfidence ) due to robust experimental evidence an important role in evaluations, heuristics and decision making given by people (see also the prospect theory ).

Behavioral economic and psychological perspectives

Behavioral economics and psychology classify overestimating oneself in the category of cognitive distortions .

One can distinguish or observe three types of overconfidence:

1. Assessment of the current performance
2. Assessment of the achievement relative to the achievement of other people
3. Assessment of your own knowledge (accuracy, timeliness, etc.)

Overconfidence is not a general personality trait of a person. It is usually context-dependent. People tend to overestimate their skills in areas of responsibility that are simple and common (driving a car, socializing well with others, etc.) and tend to underestimate them in difficult tasks.

In laboratory experiments, Muriel Niederle ( Princeton ) and Lise Vesterlund ( Copenhagen Business School ) were able to show that men are more likely to opt for convex remuneration systems (e.g. competition or tournament systems), whereas women are more likely to opt for linear remuneration systems ( piece wage , English piece- rate ) decide. The men and women participating in these experiments both on average overestimated their abilities, but women to a much lesser extent.

See also

• Dunning-Kruger Effect

literature

• Philipp Hermanns: Organizational Hubris - The rise and fall of a celebrity firm using the example of CargoLifter AG. Kölner Wissenschaftsverlag, Cologne 2012, ISBN 978-3-942720-33-5 . Also available as an open access version at: FU-Berlin: Dissertationen Online .

Web links

Wikiquote: Overconfidence  - Quotes

Wiktionary: Overconfidence  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

• Rolf Dobelli : Why presumably you too systematically overestimate your knowledge

Individual evidence

1. ^ Philipp Hermanns: Organizational Hubris - Rise and Fall of a Celebrity Firm using the example of CargoLifter AG. Kölner Wissenschaftsverlag, Cologne 2012, ISBN 978-3-942720-33-5 , p. 9 ff.
2. ↑ David G. Myers: Psychology. Springer, 2005, ISBN 3-540-21358-9 , pp. 438f.
3. ^ Don A. Moore, Deborah A. Small: Error and Bias in Comparative Judgment: On Being Both Better and Worse Than We Think We Are. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2007, Vol. 92, No. 6, 972-989. Available as PDF .
4. ^ Hart Blanton, Brett W. Pelham, Tracy DeHart, Mauricio Carvallo: Overconfidence as dissonance reduction. In: Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. 37, September 2001, pp. 373-385.
5. ^ RP Vallone et al .: The overconfident prediction of future actions and outcomes by self and others. In: Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 58, 1990, pp. 582-592.