Overconfidence

Abstract

Overconfidence occurs when persons overestimate their abilities in general or with respect to a specific task/context. This bias causes systematic errors, yet it is found in 70% of tested individuals, suggesting that this trait gives an adaptive advantage in competitions between individuals for finite resources. In the first months of the pandemic, overconfidence was the rule among experts and played a role in important cases of erroneous predictions. How to distinguish, in the experts, a justified trust from an outsized one?

Keywords

• overconfidence
• overprecision
• overestimation
• pandemics
• expert knowledge