How many times have you expected a high grade in an exam, but were disappointed with the result? Have you ever believed that a romance was certain to last forever, and then it did not? In both situations, like in many others throughout life, you have been overconfident. You’re in good company: doctors often overestimate the accuracy of their diagnoses, workers overestimate the speed with which they can finish a project, and couples continue to get married despite the fact that half of all marriages end in divorce.
In the last 20 years, researchers in psychology, cognitive science and economics have studied the ‘overconfidence phenomenon’. Overconfidence has been documented to be widespread in everyday decisions concerning a number of tasks and situations. It affects people working in many areas, such as entrepreneurs, nurses, professors, financial experts and students. We behave as overconfident individuals when we overestimate our ability or performance in a specific domain, such as driving, running a marathon or passing an exam.
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