Why overconfidence is good

Research also suggests that we tend to penalize others when they behave in ways that are considered violations of social norms. Norms dictate that men should be confident and assertive, while women are often expected to be nurturing and warm. Behaving outside these norms can have a number of consequences for both men and women.

Men who are not highly assertive may be seen as timid or weak, while women who are self-assured are viewed as bossy. In one study conducted by Yale researchers, men who expressed anger actually boosted their perceived status. Women who expressed the same anger, on the other hand, were rated as less competent and were thus accorded lower wages and status.

Interestingly, providing some type of external explanation for the anger eliminated this gender bias. In many cases, it may not be that people are too confident. Instead, unspoken gender norms and stereotypes may cause people, especially women, to be judged as overconfident when they are really just expressing normal levels of assertiveness.

Certain expressions of confidence, however, may not carry the same social and professional risks that other displays of self-confidence might. Researchers Melissa Williams and Larissa Tiedens found that women who expressed dominance through body language and facial expressions, such as standing tall and using a loud voice, did not suffer the same loss in social perception.

Another example of how perceptions of confidence can be influenced by culture is how kids are sometimes viewed by older adults. In other words, children receive praise for simply participating, not for the actual content of their performance. Such praise is designed to build confidence and self-esteem. Critics suggest that this approach leads to a sense of entitlement or even unearned confidence.

That children move into adulthood believing that simply showing up is enough to succeed, making it harder to accept when this success does not come so easy. However, researchers such as Carol Dweck have found that praising efforts plays a critical role in building what is known as a growth mindset. A mindset is an underlying belief about intelligence and learning. People with a fixed mindset tend to believe that intelligence is an inborn trait. Those with a growth mindset believe that they can become smarter through their own efforts.

People with fixed mindsets tend to give up in the face of challenges because they believe they simply lack the innate traits and skills needed for success.

Those with growth mindsets, on the other hand, have the confidence and understanding that they can overcome the challenge through study, practice, and effort. Dweck suggests that praising efforts, rather than outcomes, is the key. Doing this helps kids realize that their own efforts and actions determine the outcomes, which helps them gain the confidence they need to keep soldiering forward even in the face of difficulty.

This doesn't mean lavishing praise on kids for doing nothing. Rather, it means recognizing their efforts instead of only focusing on the results. So why do older generations perceive younger people as overly confident? This perception is more likely due to shifts in cultural norms and expectations. Older generations were encouraged to be quiet, obedient, and out of the way. Seen, but not heard, was typically described as the ideal when it came to kids.

It may not be that kids today are too confident; they are simply allowed a level of self-expression that older generations may not have gotten to enjoy as children. Is it possible that you have too much self-confidence? For many people, the answer to that question is probably not. In fact, people often tend to deal with the opposite problem — having too little confidence.

So if you have a solid sense of self and the assuredness to go after what you want in life, that's great! If your sense of self extends to caring about and being concerned with the lives of others, then your confidence levels are probably just about right.

If you are focused purely on yourself leaving little room for other people, then there might be a problem. Or that you are expressing this confidence in a way that is not helping your health and relationships. When helping children develop healthy levels of confidence and esteem, praising them for efforts is only one part of the puzzle. Confidence also comes from having the love and support of dependable caregivers, as well as a solid guidance system that balances rewards with appropriate boundaries.

In such settings, children are able to explore the world, discover their personal strengths and limits, and develop the ability to self-regulate. The problem with too much self-confidence is that it often involves a grandiose view of the self without much substance behind it.

People who think they are the best, smartest, or most qualified are, after all, sometimes the worst, most uninformed, and least qualified. Except they are often the only ones unaware of their shortcomings, a phenomenon known as the Dunning-Kruger effect. In other cases, excessive self-confidence involves ignoring the needs of others in favor of one's own interests.

This can lead to major problems in all kinds of relationships, including romantic partnerships, friendships, and family ties. After all, who wants to spend time with someone who thinks he is better than everyone else and who only thinks about himself? So what can people do to ensure that their self-confidence is realistic, authentic, and socially appropriate?

Self-confidence is usually something that people wish they could improve, yet sometimes excessive levels of confidence can be a problem. When confidence becomes arrogance, it can alienate others and make it difficult to succeed both socially and professionally. All CEOs are surely exceptionally confident individuals. To make it to the top of an organization requires not only talent, but also extreme self-belief and confidence.

Our first challenge was to answer the question: How do we separate the merely confident managers from the overconfident variety?

This is a common approach in academic literature. In theory, a CEO should exercise these options for the purpose of wealth diversification. By hanging on to these vested stock options, these CEOs are personally under-diversified and face the risk of great financial losses if their stock price were to fall. We also had to figure out how to measure leadership, a trickier question. Leadership has many dimensions, but as financial economists, we define leadership as the ability of a leader to motivate greater effort from key stakeholders.

In the modern corporate world, leadership is distinct from the formal authority of instructing subordinates to perform certain actions. Instead, great corporate leaders are able to motivate and inspire their employees to go the extra mile. Such CEOs may even be able to reach beyond the boundaries of their firm and engage external suppliers to make major investments to support their vision.

For example, for a company with almost no manufacturing capacity of its own, the iPhone could not exist without heavy commitments from key suppliers. There was also no way that Apple could have met its tight product timelines, or kept its products shrouded in secrecy until launch, without fierce commitments from its employees. We predicted that managerial overconfidence might help leaders gain greater effort from stakeholders like employees and suppliers.

In turn, he might be committed to work harder Steve Jobs was known for his maniacal attention to detail, down to the shade of color on an app or be more likely to lead from the front his famous product unveilings. We saw even stronger results. Why might the channel of communication have such an important role in whether overconfidence is a social liability? One feature of nonverbal behavior is that it is not so clearly tied to a specific, falsifiable claim as are verbal expressions.

We explored whether this was what mattered in follow-up studies. In one study, we asked mTurk participants to select a collaborator, as the participants had done in our first studies. Our participants found the denial much more plausible when the candidate had expressed confidence nonverbally rather than verbally. This was a strong indicator that plausible deniability could be behind the advantage for the candidates expressing overconfidence nonverbally.

In another follow-up study, we again found evidence to suggest that channel of communication played a key role because of plausible deniability. This time we used a judge-advisor paradigm, in which we asked undergraduate participants, many of whom were majoring in business, to act as managers evaluating advisors. The advisors expressed confidence or cautiousness about their decisions on a recorded video, with varying levels of plausible deniability.

For example, in one condition, the advisors expressed confidence, or lack thereof, with the video sound on mute to showcase their nonverbal behavior e. The results replicated our previous studies, in that confidence, no matter how it was expressed, was beneficial until it became clear that performance fell short. Then, overconfidence cost the advisors. But those who expressed confidence nonverbally with a higher level of plausible deniability did not lose all of their initial advantage. These studies point to one reason why some people are penalized for being overconfident while others are not.

You can also hold colleagues accountable by asking them to be specific in their confidence assessments and by verifying their accuracy over time. You have 1 free article s left this month. You are reading your last free article for this month. Subscribe for unlimited access. Create an account to read 2 more.

Collaboration and teams. It depends on how you express it.