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Moore Accuracy Lab at Berkeley-Haas
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Why You Should Be Worried About Underconfidence Its invisible cost is high When Alexander Fleming discovered Penicillium mold growing in his messy laboratory in 1928, he had no idea what momentous consequences it would have. “I didn’t plan to revolutionize all medicine by discovering the world’s first antibiotic,” he wrote. “But I guess that was exactly what I did.” These innovators underestimated the value of their contributions. What makes them unique is that their work changed the world anyway. Most of the time, underconfidence leads people to shy away from opportunities that could lead to success. All parents have seen their child make exactly these sorts of errors. A parent’s gentle encouragement is met with stiff resistance: “What if I fail? What if I embarrass myself?” There have been many times when I was sure that, if only my son would try some new food, he would enjoy it. “Eeew. It looks gross,” he would insist, turning up his nose. But the reluctance to take new risks is not the most important consequence of underestimation. When people are sufficiently convinced that their lives will not get better, they may consider the possibility that life is not worth living. Of course, the point at which they will be most tempted to end it is the point at which they feel most pessimistic about the value of their lives. Hunter S. Thompson was a brilliant writer who had lived a life of daring adventure when he wrote to his wife, “Boring. I am always bitchy. No fun for anybody.” He shot himself. The cost of underconfidence is the opportunity cost of adventures not taken, delights undiscovered, the life unlived. And so the errors of underconfidence that we make are often invisible because we do not know what we have missed. The careers that we would have been successful at do not unfold. The lovers with whom we would have been blissfully happy do not track us down to point out what we are giving up. All of us should hope to avoid the tragic consequences of underconfidence. But how? Is the solution to simply be more confident—more optimistic about all the opportunities that come our way? Certainly not. Overconfidence brings with it enormous risks and can be ruinous. Hockey great Wayne Gretzky is often quoted as having said, “You miss 100% of shots you don’t take.” But the lesson is not to take a shot at the goal every time you get the puck. The solution is to figure out which shots you can make, and take those. This means doing a better job of forecasting your prospects for joy, fulfillment, and success in each of the opportunities that come your way. Force yourself to think beyond what seems like the most likely outcome and instead explicitly consider other possibilities. Might you be wrong about that unfamiliar food? Give it a try. What are the chances you might be admitted to graduate school? Investigate the admissions process. Thinking systematically about possible outcomes and each one’s likelihood has proven to be a useful tool for taking off the blinders of overconfidence and underconfidence, and thinking bigger about all that is possible. In order to do this, you need to be intentional about forecasting the consequences of various opportunities. It requires you to think through opportunities to assess their future value. It also requires you to think big about the potential upside as well as the downside. The best cure for underconfidence is not overconfidence, but seeking more accurate and truthful beliefs. |