The Many Faces of Overconfidence
Don Moore, Professor
Business, Haas School, Psychology
Applications for Spring 2025 are closed for this project.
Have you ever scored lower on a test than you expected,
lost a competition to a competitor you thought you would trounce,
been certain about a fact only to have Google prove you incorrect?
People are frequently overconfident. Understanding overconfidence can help us become more accurate about our self-perceptions.
Researchers have studied overconfidence in basically three different ways:
- Overestimation is thinking you are better than you are.
- Overplacement is thinking that you are better than others when you are not.
- Overprecision is being too sure you know the truth.
These three different manifestations of overconfidence have a panoply of fascinating consequences on human judgment and behavior. Our ongoing research examines the circumstances under which people display different forms of overconfidence, and when they are underconfident. The results identify important consequences for human decisions, organizations, and markets.
Role: Research apprentices in our lab will gain experience with many aspects of the research process such as:
- Conducting experiments
- Conducting literature searches through online library sources
- Obtaining permission to conduct research with human participants
- Collecting and analyzing data
- Proofreading research materials and papers
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As a member of The Accuracy Lab, you will contribute to tasks and lab meetings about multiple projects that are related to how people make decisions. Positions are available only to those who can commit at least two semesters to working with lab.
Students from all majors with an interest in Psychology, Cognitive Science, Computer Science, Decision Making, Behavioral Economics, and/or Organizational Behavior are encouraged to apply. We are especially interested in students who are considering applying to graduate school to do research in Psychology, Organizational Behavior, or Management (not an MBA). Our lab focuses on research.
Qualifications: We seek research apprentices who are motivated, conscientious, and eager to learn.
Required:
- Excellent oral and written communication skills
- Superb attention to detail
- Ability to collaborate well with others
- Ability to lead a room of participants through experiments
- Interest in psychological science
Preferable (not required):
- Coursework on psychology research design and basic statistics
- Experience conducting experimental research
- Experience with statistical tests and programs such as R or SPSS
- Web programming experience
Day-to-day supervisor for this project: Aileen Wu, Staff Researcher
Hours: 6-8 hrs
Related website: http://learnmoore.org/
Social Sciences Education, Cognition & Psychology