Dr Cameron Anderson, the study's first author, said:
The findings can also explain why at work the incompetent are so often promoted over their more competent peers."Our studies found that overconfidence helped people attain social status.
People who believed they were better than others, even when they weren't, were given a higher place in the social ladder.
And the motive to attain higher social status thus spurred overconfidence."
Dr Anderson said:
Across a series of six experiments the researchers tested several aspects of their theory."In organizations, people are very easily swayed by others' confidence even when that confidence is unjustified.
Displays of confidence are given an inordinate amount of weight."
They found that overconfident individuals did indeed manage to gain the highest social status just by being overconfident.
However, their overconfidence wasn't perceived as such by others in the group, Dr Anderson said:
Another experiment revealed that overconfident individuals tended to:"This overconfidence did not come across as narcissistic.
The most overconfident people were considered the most beloved."
- Speak more often.
- Use a confident tone.
- Give more information and answers.
- Act relaxed and calm.
The final two studies revealed that desiring status actually caused people to be more overconfident."These big participators were not obnoxious, they didn't say, 'I'm really good at this.'
Instead, their behavior was much more subtle.
They simply participated more and exhibited more comfort with the task — even though they were no more competent than anyone else."
The study's authors conclude:
In other words: are we just selecting the over-confident to rule us and ignoring those who could actually do a much better job?"One of the most basic questions for students of human social groups, organizations, and societies, is the question of how we select individuals for positions of status.
Although we may seek to choose wisely, we are often forced to rely on proxies for ability, such as individuals' confidence.
In so doing, we, as a society, create incentives for those who would seek status to display more confidence than their actual ability merits."
The study was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (Anderson et al., 2012).
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