Overconfidence in Forecasts of Own Performance: An Experimental Study
通过实验检验人们对自己在陌生任务中绝对或相对表现的预测是否存在过度自信，发现零均值误差或信心不足比过度自信更常见。
Systematic overconfidence by individuals regarding their abilities and prospects could have important economic consequences. But overconfidence has received little direct testing within economics. We use experiments to test for overconfidence in people's forecasts of their absolute or relative performance in two unfamiliar tasks. Given their chosen effort, participants have incentives to forecast accurately, with opportunities for feedback, learning and revision. Forecasts are evaluated at aggregate and individual levels. We find zero mean error or underconfidence far more prevalent than overconfidence. Underconfidence is greatest in forecasts of absolute rather than relative performance and among those using greater effort quantity or quality. Copyright © The Author(s). Journal compilation © Royal Economic Society 2009.