Overconfidence and the Attainment of Status in Groups
Posted: 02 Jan 2018
Understanding group dynamics, and where we fall within them, helps us to understand our BK experience and remove it, protect ourselves from repeating it, perhaps even protects others.
"Overconfidence and the attainment of status in groups" by Cameron Anderson and Sebastien Brion (2010), UC Berkeley ... correlate these findings with studies of "false confidence", narcissism and the 'Dunning–Kruger effect' (below).
The 'Dunning–Kruger effect' in particular is a brutal attack on BKism and, in particular, Lekhraj Kirpalani's spiritual probity, requiring us to take a very painful look in the mirror.
"Overconfidence and the attainment of status in groups" by Cameron Anderson and Sebastien Brion (2010), UC Berkeley ... correlate these findings with studies of "false confidence", narcissism and the 'Dunning–Kruger effect' (below).
Individuals who occupy positions of high status and authority tend to engage in overconfidence more than others. While prior work suggests that this excessive overconfidence is partly a product of their elevated status, the current research tested whether overconfidence can also lead to status:
Are individuals with overly positive self-perceptions of ability more likely to attain status in the first place?
Three studies of task-focused dyads and groups involving laboratory and field settings found support for this hypothesis. Further, the relation between overconfidence and status was consistently mediated by peer-perceived competence: overconfident individuals attained status because others inaccurately perceived them as more competent. An experimental manipulation established the causal priority of overconfidence, and a longitudinal study found the effects of overconfidence endured over time.
This research contributes to our understanding of status distribution systems in groups and organizations, the consequences of overconfidence, and the psychology of status.
The 'Dunning–Kruger effect' in particular is a brutal attack on BKism and, in particular, Lekhraj Kirpalani's spiritual probity, requiring us to take a very painful look in the mirror.
The 'Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias wherein people of low ability suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly assessing their cognitive ability as greater than it is. The cognitive bias of illusory superiority derives from the metacognitive inability of low-ability persons to recognize their own ineptitude; without the self-awareness and understanding of one's own thought processes, low-ability people cannot objectively evaluate their actual competence or incompetence.