The Evolution of Overconfidence

Didn't we just see a post on how people who had high self-opinions of their abilities made more money on average? Wasn't that just yesterday?

squaring up this ("The Kind of Employees You Want To Hire"): http://www.businessweek.com/managing/content/sep2009/ca20090... with this: ("Unskilled and Unaware of it") http://www.apa.org/journals/features/psp7761121.pdf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect http://www.damninteresting.com/unskilled-and-unaware-of-it

seems to suggest that the natural explanation is a) overconfidence helps us in a lot of intangible ways -- impressing bosses, convincing people to give us jobs/money, whatever. b) as long as it doesn't kill us in the tangible ways. (whoops, turns out i can't catch a bullet with my teeth!)

More on our overconfidence bias: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overconfidence_effect

and it's twin brother, certanity bias: http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2008/10/the_certainty_bias_1....

The human brain just isn't built to handle probabilities very well.

It is possible for most people to be above average. And what is a "statistical impossibility"?