The Overconfidence Effect: The Mistakes of the Smart
Examine how overconfidence can lead to significant errors, even among experts.
Page Summary
An explainer of the overconfidence effect, the systematic gap between felt certainty and actual accuracy, opening with Lichtenstein and Fischhoff's finding that people 90% confident were right only about 75% of the time and Alpert and Raiffa's overly narrow 90% confidence intervals. It presents a taxonomy of three forms (overestimation, overplacement, and overprecision), the cognitive science of excessive certainty, the intellectual lineage, the empirical research, and the limits and nuances of the effect.
Contributions
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First names swapped; paper is by Justin Kruger and David Dunning
BeforeDavid Kruger and Justin Dunning's 1999 paper
AfterJustin Kruger and David Dunning's 1999 paper
Why: Corrected swapped first names: the 1999 paper is by Justin Kruger and David Dunning. Verified already live in body content and bibliography; FAQ mentions the Dunning-Kruger effect by name only, with no first names to correct.
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