Graças ao Noah Brier, me deparei com um texto foda sobre o excesso de confiança. Leitura mais do que recomendada em tempos de crise financeira:
What do the following high-profile disasters have in common: World War I, Vietnam, the war in Iraq, the collapse of the banking system, and underpreparedness for natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina?
According to Dominic Johnson at the University of Edinburgh and his pal James Fowler at the University of California, San Diego, the answer is that they have all been blamed on the all-too-human condition of overconfidence.
The puzzle about overconfidence is its ubiquity. Many studies have shown that most people have an exaggerated sense of their own capabilities, an illusion that they have control over uncontrollable events and are invulnerable to risk. Most people, for example, believe they are above-average drivers, a statistical impossibility. We are all overconfident in one way or another.
Bem, até aí nenhuma novidade, como dizem por aí, “confiança é uma merda”. Mas o interessante é que psicólogos defendem que o excesso de confiaça é uma “boa estratégia evolutiva”, nas palavras do Noah:
By creating a mathematical model of the way overconfident individuals compete against ordinary individuals, they show that there is a clear advantage in overconfidence.
In fact, if the potential reward is at least twice as great as the cost of competing, then overconfidence is the best strategy. In fact, overconfidence is actually advantageous on average, because it boosts ambition, resolve, morale, and persistence. In other words, overconfidence is the best way to maximize benefits over costs when risks are uncertain.
