Cinfidelity is complicated. Ted talks try to teach you how to get it; parents want it for their children; for those who don’t have it, it seems almost impossible to acquire. Entrepreneurs, social media influencers, and job applicants will project certainty even when internally plagued by self-doubt—which is perhaps no surprise, since virtually every talk about confidence is about how to gain more of it, not less.
And yet too much confidence can have serious consequences. This contributed to the financial crisis of 2008 and the Post Office scandal. In my years working as a behavioral scientist, I measured the confidence levels of thousands of government officials and created case studies of how overconfident decision-making in government leads to failed policies. I have also seen how this can affect senior decision-making at the highest levels – during the Covid inquiry Matt Hancock, the health secretary in 2020, was described as responding to the crisis with “core levels” of overconfidence.
Most of us are fortunately not tasked with responding to a pandemic, but none of us is immune to the consequences of too many scams. I bet you can think of someone in your work or personal life whose confidence doesn’t match good outcomes. If so, they are not alone. At the Behavioral Insights team, where I work, a new study shows that overconfidence is widespread among the British public.
We gave a test to 2,000 adults, asking them 30 general knowledge questions and how confident they were in their answers. We found that eight out of 10 were overconfident – by which we mean more certain that their answers would be correct than turned out to be the case. Strikingly, 84% of baby boomers (people aged 60 to 78) were overconfident compared to 75% of Gen Z (those aged 18 to 27). This gap of 10 percentage points was twice as large as the distance between how confident those with a college degree were (79% over-insured) compared to those whose level of qualifications was GCSE or below (84%).
Not knowing things is good – the key is knowing what you don’t know. Gen Z was fairly confident (82%) that they knew the real name of a celebrity YouTuber MrBeast – but it was in line with reality: 86% said Jimmy Donaldson correctly. This close match between correctness and confidence is called being “well calibrated”. In contrast, boomers were 61% confident, but only 36% correct – classic overconfidence. Of course with age comes experience and for most of us this is a net advantage. But it also seems that most of us grow older in greater overconfidence.
Confidence plays tricks on all of us. We see the certainty of high performers like the Olympic pistol shooter Kim Ye Ji (who said she had “nothing to improve” when asked how she prepared for the recent Olympics) and we want to emulate that. But the confidence of Olympians is justified by the fact that they are truly among the best in the world. Olympians also benefit from frequent, direct feedback on their performance, giving them an accurate sense of how well they are relative to others. Most of life is not like that.
If overconfidence is overrated, what is the alternative? Instead of pursuing an ever-increasing sense of unfounded self-assurance, strive to be well-calibrated. Know what you know, and what you don’t know.
If you are raising children, celebrate their achievements, but emphasize that you are proud of their growth – rather than implying that they have reached a terminal destination. “You are fine, and will be better in the future” is the balance to strike. In the workplace, encourage and appreciate the input of less vocal colleagues. The immature are a necessary counterweight to the overconfident majority, helpfully reminding the rest of us to double down on our assumptions instead of blindly rushing ahead. Underconfidence is also a better place to start than overconfidence – if you’re underconfident, the world can eventually teach you that your judgment is pretty good, and that you need to back yourself up more. The problem with overconfidence is that it makes people feel bulletproof – so sure they’re right that they don’t notice when they’ve made mistakes, so they don’t change their behavior.
Interestingly, in my experience running calibration workshops with dozens of organizations, I’ve noticed that the more confident groups tend to have a higher number of younger women. And yet in many organizations you find that leadership positions are increasingly male dominated – no wonder overconfidence is such a pervasive problem.
For most people, focusing on calibration means curbing a natural tendency to overconfidence. Forget the advice to stick your chest out and blast your way through. Overconfidence is fool’s gold that looks like the real thing, which is why so many of us are convinced by it. But in reality this is not something to strive for – in public life and in our personal lives it tends to produce disappointing and sometimes catastrophic results.
Think about calibration as basic cognitive hygiene – just as you expect to get checkups for your teeth or eyes, you might consider regular tests to monitor the accuracy of your judgment. After all, like your gums and vision, it tends to get worse over time, not better.
