Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences pp 1–5Cite as

Overconfidence

  • Living reference work entry
  • First Online:

  • 108 Accesses

Definition

To display overconfidence is to be more confident than one deserves to be. Researchers have studied overconfidence in three basic ways (Moore and Healy 2008): Overestimation is thinking you are better than you are; overplacement is the exaggerated belief that you are better than others; and overprecision is excessive faith that you know the truth.

Introduction

Overconfidence is not the same as confidence. The key difference is that overconfidence assesses the degree to which confidence exceeds some normative benchmark. Overconfidence is also not synonymous with optimism. The most widely used measure of optimism is the Life Orientation Test (Scheier et al. 1994), which measures generalized beliefs that the future is bright with items like, “In uncertain times, I usually expect the best.” Because the test leaves unspecified what “the best” is and lacks any measure of actual outcomes, the test itself does not measure overconfidence nor does it predict overconfidence on other...

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

References

  • Acker, D., & Duck, N. W. (2008). Cross-cultural overconfidence and biased self-attribution. Journal of Socio-Economics, 37(5), 1815–1824.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Alpert, M., & Raiffa, H. (1982). A progress report on the training of probability assessors. In D. Kahneman, P. Slovic, & A. Tversky (Eds.), Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ames, D. R., & Kammrath, L. (2004). Mind-reading and metacognition: Narcissism, not actual competence, predicts self-estimated ability. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 28, 187–209.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Anderson, C., Brion, S., Moore, D. A., & Kennedy, J. A. (2012). A social-functional account of overconfidence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 103(4), 718–735.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Barber, B. M., & Odean, T. (2001). Boys will be boys: Gender, overconfidence, and common stock investment. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 116(1), 261–293.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Beer, J. S., & Hughes, B. L. (2010). Neural systems of social comparison and the “above-average” effect. Neuroimage, 49(3), 2671–2679.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Boltz, M. G., Kupperman, C., & Dunne, J. (1998). The role of learning in remembered duration. Memory & Cognition, 26(5), 903–921.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Buehler, R., Griffin, D. W., & Ross, M. (1994). Exploring the “planning fallacy”: Why people underestimate their task completion times. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67(3), 366–381.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Campbell, W. K., Goodie, A. S., & Foster, J. D. (2004). Narcissism, confidence, and risk attitude. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 17(4), 481–502.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Deaves, R., Lüders, E., & Schröder, M. (2010). The dynamics of overconfidence: Evidence from stock market forecasters. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 75(3), 402–412. doi:10.1016/j.jebo.2010.05.001.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Erev, I., Wallsten, T. S., & Budescu, D. V. (1994). Simultaneous over- and underconfidence: The role of error in judgment processes. Psychological Review, 101(3), 519–527.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Funder, D. C. (1995). On the accuracy of personality judgment: A realistic approach. Psychological Review, 102(4), 652.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Harris, A. J. L., & Hahn, U. (2011). Unrealistic optimism about future life events: A cautionary note. Psychological Review, 118(1), 135–154.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Harvey, N. (1997). Confidence in judgment. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 1(2), 78–82.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • John, O. P., & Robins, R. W. (1994). Accuracy and bias in self-perception: Individual differences in self-enhancement and the role of narcissism. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66, 206–219.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Jonsson, A.-C., & Allwood, C. M. (2003). Stability and variability in the realism of confidence judgments over time, content domain, and gender. Personality and Individual Differences, 34(4), 559–574.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Krueger, J. I., Acevedo, M., & Robbins, J. M. (2005). Self as sample. In K. Fiedler & P. Juslin (Eds.), Information sampling and adaptive cognition (pp. 353–377). New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Kruger, J. (1999). Lake Wobegon be gone! The “below-average effect” and the egocentric nature of comparative ability judgments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77(2), 221–232.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Langnickel, F., & Zeisberger, S. (2016). Do we measure overconfidence? A closer look at the interval production task. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 128, 121–133.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mannes, A. E., & Moore, D. A. (2013). A Behavioral Demonstration of Overconfidence in Judgment. Psychological Science, 24(7), 1190–1197. doi:10.1177/0956797612470700.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Moore, D. A., Carter, A., & Yang, H. H. J. (2015). Wide of the mark: Evidence on the underlying causes of overprecision in judgment. In Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. Retrieved from http://learnmoore.org/BDE/

  • Moore, D. A., & Dev, A. S. (2016). Individual Differences and situational effects on overconfidence. Retrieved from http://osf.io/hzk6q.

  • Moore, D. A., & Healy, P. J. (2008). The trouble with overconfidence. Psychological Review, 115(2), 502–517.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Moore, D. A., & Kim, T. G. (2003). Myopic social prediction and the solo comparison effect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85(6), 1121–1135.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Moore, D. A., & Small, D. A. (2007). Error and bias in comparative social judgment: On being both better and worse than we think we are. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92(6), 972–989. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.92.6.972.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Moore, D. A., & Swift, S. A. (2010). The three faces of overconfidence in organizations. In R. Van Dick & J. K. Murnighan (Eds.), Social psychology of organizations (pp. 147–184). Oxford: Taylor & Francis.

    Google Scholar 

  • Moore, D. A., Tenney, E. R., & Haran, U. (2016). Overprecision in judgment. In G. Wu & G. Keren (Eds.), Handbook of judgment and decision making (pp. 182–212). New York: Wiley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nekby, L., Thoursie, P. S., & Vahtrik, L. (2008). Gender and self-selection into a competitive environment: Are women more overconfident than men? Economics Letters, 100(3), 405–407.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Niederle, M., & Vesterlund, L. (2007). Do women shy away from competition? Do men compete too much? Quarterly Journal of Economics, 122(3), 1067–1101.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Paulhus, D. L., Harms, P. D., Bruce, M. N., & Lysy, D. C. (2003). The over-claiming technique: Measuring self-enhancement independent of ability. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84(4), 890–904.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Paulhus, D. L., & John, O. P. (1998). Egoistic and moralistic biases in self-perception: The interplay of self-deceptive styles with basic traits and motives. Journal of Personality, 66(6), 1025–1060.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pulford, B. D., & Colman, A. M. (1997). Overconfidence: Feedback and item difficulty effects. Personality and Individual Differences, 23(1), 125–133.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sanbonmatsu, D. M., Sherman, S. J., & Hamilton, D. L. (1987). Illusory correlation in the perception of individuals and groups. Social Cognition, 5(1), 1–25.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schaefer, P. S., Williams, C. C., Goodie, A. S., & Campbell, W. K. (2004). Overconfidence and the big five. Journal of Research in Personality, 38(5), 473–480.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Scheier, M. F., Carver, C. S., & Bridges, M. W. (1994). Distinguishing optimism from neuroticism (and trait anxiety, self-mastery, and self-esteem): A reevaluation of the Life Orientation Test. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67(6), 1063–1078.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Slusher, M. P., & Anderson, C. A. (1987). When reality monitoring fails: The role of imagination in stereotype maintenance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52(4), 653.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Soll, J. B., & Klayman, J. (2004). Overconfidence in interval estimates. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 30(2), 299–314.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Teigen, K. H., & Jorgensen, M. (2005). When 90% confidence intervals are 50% certain: On the credibility of credible intervals. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 19(4), 455–475.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tenney, E. R., Logg, J. M., & Moore, D. A. (2015). (Too) optimistic about optimism: The belief that optimism improves performance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 108(3), 377–399. doi:10.1037/pspa0000018.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Don A. Moore & Amelia S. Dev

  2. Haas School of Busines, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Don A. Moore

Authors
  1. Don A. Moore
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Amelia S. Dev
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Don A. Moore .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Oakland University, Rochester, USA

    Virgil Zeigler-Hill

  2. Oakland University, Rochester, USA

    Todd K. Shackelford

Section Editor information

  1. Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

    Christian Jordan

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG

About this entry

Cite this entry

Moore, D.A., Dev, A.S. (2017). Overconfidence. In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_1157-1

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_1157-1

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-28099-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-28099-8

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Behavioral Science and PsychologyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation