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I don't think you understood the article. Overconfidence is a well-defined and measurable term, a systematic tendency to estimate one's future performance in ex
by randomwalker 17y ago
I don't think you understood the article. Overconfidence is a well-defined and measurable term, a systematic tendency to estimate one's future performance in excess of expectation. In one widely quoted study, 95% of a cohort of MIT students expected to graduate in the top half of the class. (That might well be apocryphal, but it serves to illustrate the point just the same.) It also illustrates the point that while you may not always be able to determine that an individual is overconfident, you can point to a group and say that its members are overconfident on average.
This is completely unrelated to the question of whether or not overconfidence is a good thing. For example, there are studies showing that students who are slightly overconfident -- but not too much -- improve the most in the long term. (Not able to find a link right now, unfortunately.) As another commenter pointed out, the consequences of failure have changed dramatically (for the better) in recent times. In my opinion, a lot more people should be taking up entrepreneurship than the current levels.
- grandalf 17y agoThe point in your second paragraph was the point I was trying to make :)
- wheels 17y agoTo make the subtlety more clear -- I think that over-confidence could have three slightly divergent definitions: - Too much confidence to accurately predict personal outcomes - So much of the first that it becomes harmful - So much of the first that it deviates significantly from the norm As I recall, most people fall into the first, and I presume the article is suggesting that entrepreneurs are the third.