Overconfidence, rather than being a dangerous trait, is advantageous as it encourages us to take risks we otherwise wouldn't. New research shows that not only do most of us have this inflated sense of our own abilities, it has been instilled in us through evolution, writes DICK AHLSTROM
CONFIDENCE IS an essential ingredient if you want to succeed in sport or business, at work or at war. If you don’t believe you can win, you instantly weaken your chances of victory. But what if you are a little too cocky, inclined to be overconfident when entering a competitive situation? One might view brashness as a danger, something that would leave you exposed to defeat and failure, but in fact the opposite is true.
It turns out that having too much confidence in your own abilities is an absolute advantage and increases the probability of success. New research shows that most of us suffer from inflated notions of our own abilities, something delivered through evolution given the tremendous survival advantage conferred.
How evolution might have installed this assertiveness is explored by Dominic DP Johnson of the University of Edinburgh and James H Fowler of the University of California, San Diego, in a research letter published this morning in the journal, Nature. They present a model showing that, counter-intuitively, overconfidence increases the ability of individuals and society at large to survive.
This is despite the fact that being self-assured also increases the risks of “market bubbles, financial collapses, policy failures and costly wars”, Johnson and Fowler write. While overconfidence may open the way to defeat, it also can deliver major rewards. Their model shows that if the benefits outweigh the risks, then it is better to take a chance and hope to prosper rather than to give up and surrender the field.
This happens because of our own inability to view our personal capabilities in a balanced, unbiased way, they say. Almost all of us tend to hold a more complimentary view of our abilities than an objective outsider might.
“Most people show a bias towards exaggerated personal qualities and capabilities, an illusion of control over events, and invulnerability to risk, three phenomena collectively known as ‘positive illusions’,” they write. But while it indicates an error of judgement, somehow it helps us to get ahead and prosper. This leaves us with “an evolutionary puzzle as to why humans should have evolved or maintained such an apparently damaging bias”, the researchers write.
Johnson and Fowler developed a mathematical model to study this puzzle, using a simple competition for resources involving two parties. The researchers built in aspects such as the value of rewards, the cost of conflict and uncertainty about the capability of the competitor. They believed that this would deliver the essence of almost any type of competitive interaction, from animal conflict and strategic decision-making to market competition, litigation, finance and war.
They also went against evolution, however, constructing one set of conflicts involving subjects that were completely unbiased about their abilities and another round of battles where the combatants were like us, approaching the fray with a degree of swagger.
In each exchange, the two participants had access to a resource and they had to decide whether to attempt to claim or relinquish the resource. If both claimed it a conflict would arise. If only one claimed it, they would seize it for their own while the other got nothing.
It was also possible that both would ignore the opportunity and neither would gain the benefits from the resource.
The model showed that if there was no bias – if each combatant recognised their own limits and the capabilities of their opposition – there would never be a conflict. The dispute would be settled without cost because the stronger takes the resource and the weaker gives way knowing the battle is pointless.
“In the real world, however, uncertainty is common,” the authors point out. In this scenario, an individual enters the field with a degree of overconfidence in their fighting abilities, but also uncertainty about the opposition’s capabilities. In this case it is more difficult to know whether the benefits of winning the resource are high enough to outweigh the risks of losing a battle.
But if the subject enters the field with an inflated view of his capacity to win, a conflict becomes more likely, unless the competitor misreads the situation and gives way to a weaker challenger.
“Overconfidence is advantageous because it encourages individuals to claim resources they could not otherwise win if it came to a conflict (stronger but cautious rivals will sometimes fail to make a claim), and it keeps them from walking away from conflicts they would surely win,” the authors write.
Johnson and Fowler believe their model helps solve the mystery of why we tend towards overconfidence. If, during our evolutionary history, the value of resources tended to outweigh the costs of competing for them, then evolution would deliver a bias towards cockiness.
“Such an outcome is exactly what the literature on experimental psychology has long demonstrated but has lacked an explanation for its origin,” they conclude.
Yes we can . . . or at least that's what we think
MOST PEOPLE exhibit a degree of over- confidence, even if they don't imagine themselves among the masters of the universe. Evolution has seen fit to install this characteristic in us because it improves our ability to survive.
Examples of this inherent cockiness are readily available, according to Matthijs van Veelen of the University of Amsterdam and Martin A Nowak of Harvard University, who together contributed a "news and reviews" article in Nature to accompany the research published by Johnson and Fowler.
If we were half as good drivers as we consider ourselves there would be far fewer crashes on our roads and while most of us say we are in good health, smoking, obesity and other risky behaviours abound.
A survey of one million second-level students showed that 70 per cent rated themselves as above-average leaders among their peers, although there were 2 per cent who viewed themselves as below average, according to van Veelen and Nowak.
Confidence also seems in plentiful supply in our universities, as surveys showed that 94 per cent of professors ranked their own teaching skills as "above average", the authors write.
"The same is true for self- assessments of performance in cognitive tasks, of attractiveness (by men, not by women) and of the healthiness of our behaviour," they say. These responses do not indicate mental instability or delusional beliefs, it is just that we suffer, collectively, from a malaise known as "positive illusions", a tendency to overestimate our abilities, along with our level of control over events and our vulnerability to risk.
Central to Johnson and Fowler's research is the idea that our propensity for audaciousness is so widespread because it emerged as our species evolved. They believe they can show a process through which this could have occurred, but regardless of how it got there, it affects our lives in a real way.
It allows us to continually minimise risks, at least in our minds. We persistently put the dangers of climate change to one side in the belief that it will never happen. It helps us to ignore genuine threats such as hurricanes, leaving us unprepared when disaster does occur. It feeds into overconfident market trading that creates things like property bubbles and financial collapses. It also leads our countries into costly wars.
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Dick Ahlstrom Science Editor