Overconfidence in Self-Efficacy
Overconfidence, in an educational psychology setting, is a phenomenon with which a person’s confidence in his or her performance on a task (e.g. self-efficacy) is significantly (statistically) higher than his or her actual task performance. Overconfidence is often observed and measured in situations where students are asked to rank his or her confidence in task in the form of expected performance.
Research studies have discovered a number of overconfidence phenomenona: humans tend to recall positive personality traits more readily over negative ones [5], evaluate themselves more positive over others [6], overestimate their abilities [1][2] and overestimate the depth of their understanding[7].
This article is about the effect of overconfidence on constructs such as performance, goal orientation and metacognition.
Contents
Definition
In cognitive and educational psychology, overconfidence is when a person is biased towards overestimating his or her actual ability[2]. Many studies done on overconfidence have used the same ranking or scoring mechanism for both measuring confidence magnitude and evaluating actual performance. For instance, in a study based on the game Mastermind, the participants rated their self-efficacy in the form of numbers of trials required before reaching correct solutions, which is also how performance is generally evaluated in the game.[3]
Overconfidence in Self-Efficacy and Motivational Constructs
According to Social Cognitive Theory[4], behavioral, cognitive and environmental factors in a person’s learning process interact with each other reciprocally. Under this view, self-efficacy is generally accepted to be a strong, positive predicator of performance [1].
Overconfidence and Underconfidence in Self-Efficacy
There has been a considerable amount of research that lent support to the predictive and mediational role of self-efficacy in learning [8][9]; however, there have also been some correlational studies that exhibited non-positive correlations between self-efficacy and performance.
In a study done on mathematics performances of eighth grade gifted and regular education students, Frank Pajares discovered that even though gifted girls surpassed gifted boys in performance, the two groups did not differ in self-efficacy. In addition, even though most students observed were overconfident, gifted students tend to be better calibrated (or overconfident by a smaller margin) than regular education students. As Pajares pointed out, underconfidence may be a crucial factor in a student’s decision to approach or avoid math-related courses and careers despite student’s performance. The correlations illuminated by this study alone seemed to have revealed a more complicated picture of self-efficacy than one that strictly correlates positively with performance.
Some research studies have pointed out that overconfidence in self-efficacy occurs more readily in cognitive complex tasks [2], especially in ones involving causal explanations [7].
Negative Effects of High Self-Efficacy
Even though Social Cognitive Theory posits high self-efficacy to be a positive predictor of performance, some papers have presented results that suggested that mild underconfidence may have more positive influences on performance and effort than overconfidence and strong underconfidence in self-efficacy.
Overconfidence and Effort
In a study conducted by Stone, when overconfidence is induced in one of the three experiment groups (by telling participants that the system automatically adjusts their choice accuracy to increase their performance score so if they work hard they are expected to outperform 90% of the participants; but in reality, the participants were randomly assigned and the system makes no adjustment to their choices, so their expectation to outperform 90% of the participants is considered overconfident), the overconfidence group was observed to have spent more time on task and outperformed the group with strong underconfidence (induced by telling them that their choices are not adjusted, but other participants’ are, so the group will need to work hard in order to outperform 10% of all the participants, which is significantly below fair expectation since all participants are randomly assigned).
However, the overconfidence group underperformed and spent significantly less time on task than the mild underconfidence group (induced by telling them no choices were adjusted so they need to work hard in order to outperform 50% of the participants, which is slightly below fair expectation since all participants are randomly assigned).
These results suggest that mild underconfidence may have more positive motivational effects than overconfidence and strong underconfidence [2].
Caveats and Further Research
Stone’s papers viewed longer time on task as evidence for increase in effort; however, it is contentious whether students are actually exerting more effort, focusing more or using more sophisticated metacognitive strategies in the extended periods of time they spent on task. The effect of self-efficacy on effort and metacognitive strategy use can perhaps be further understood by investigating 1) how students regulate their learning differently based on their self-efficacy levels, and 2) what differences exists in the types of strategies employed by students of different self-efficacy levels.
Overconfidence and Performance
In a more recently study by Vancouver et al. [10] confirmed a positive correlation between self-efficacy and performance in an analysis between individuals. However, when an analysis is performed across time on a single individual, the researchers discovered that a person’s performance is actually a positive predictor of the person’s subsequent self-efficacy, whereas the person’s self-efficacy as a negative predicator of his or her subsequent performance. The way Vancouver et al. explained the findings is that the participants’ high self-efficacy led to overconfidence and in turn raised the likelihood of committing errors in subsequent activities.
In a study done on the game Mastermind [3], results indicated that participants who were induced with overconfidence (by automatically configuring the first few Mastermind puzzles to match their guesses, creating illusions that the participants are very good at the game), estimated their performance to be an average of 5.40 (SD = 1.66) trials before reaching a solution, compared to a control group (self-efficacy not manipulated) with an average of 6.61 (SD = 1.58) trials. In reality, the experimental group’s performance averaged at 7.10 (SD = 1.10) trials and the control group at 7.17 (SD = 1.10) with a t-test p value of 0.784. The difference in actual performance, Vancouver et al. argued, is not statistically significant.
Vancouver et al. further argued that the positive correlation between self-efficacy and performance at a-between-person level of analysis may be due to individuals’ differences in performance caused by actual differences in capacity to organize and execute abilities that also influences individual differences in beliefs in capacities.[3]
Caveats and Further Research
As noted above, the data collected by Vancouver et al., at first glance, did not reflect the hypothesis that self-efficacy is a negative predictor of performance. Even though Vancouver et al. applied hierarchical linear models (HLM) as further analyses to show trends that conform to the hypothesis’s predictions, the fact that their data’s contrary pattern was so close to passing a test of statistical significance (p = 0.784) is quite a worry. It may be desirable to design an experiment to reconfirm Vancouver et al.’s hypothesis with less ambiguity.
In addition, the experimental methods and items used in Vancouver et al. (2001, 2002) and in Stone (1994) hardly involve mastery goals. There is a reasonable possibility that participants, when satisfied with expected performance (overconfidence) or completely despaired (severe underconfidence), have no other incentive to employ more sophisticated metacognitive strategies. It may be interesting to test similar protocols on activities involving mastery goals to see if overconfidence and underconfidence exhibits similar influences.
Educational Implications
Given recent findings, a plausible thesis for educational intervention is that instead of providing strictly positive feedback to students regardless of their actual performance, inducing slightly negative expectations (e.g. slightly worse than average) may in fact encourage students to work harder to achieve or even to surpass what they deem as acceptable performance.
References
- [1] Pajares, F. “Self-Efficacy Beliefs and Mathematical Problem-Solving of Gifted Students.” Contemporary Educational Psychology 21 (1996): 325-344.
- [2] Stone, D. N. “Overconfidence in Initial Self-Efficacy Judgments: Effects on Decision Processes and Performance.” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 59 (1994): 452-474.
- [3] Vancouver, J. B, Thompson, C. E., Tischner, E. C., & Putka, D. J.. “Two Studies Examining the Negative Effect of Self-Efficacy on Performance.” Journal of Applied Psychology 87 (2002): 506-516.
- [4] Bandura, A. “Social foundations of Thought and Action: A Social Cognitive Theory.” Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall (1986).
- [5] Kuiper, N. A., Olinger, L.J., MacDonald, M.R., & Shaw, B.F. “Self-schema processing of depressed and nondepressed content: The effects of vulnerability on depression.” Social Cognition 3 (1985). 77-93.
- [6] Green, S.K., & Gross, A. E. “Self-serving biases in implicit evaluations.” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 5. 214-217.
- [7] Rozenblit, L, & Keil, F. “The misunderstood limits of folk science: an illusion of explanatory depth.” Cognitive Science 92 (2002) 1-42.
- [8] Maddux, J.E., Norton, L:W, & Stoltenberg, C.D. “Self-efficacy expectancy, outcome expectancy, and outcome value: Relative effects on behavioral intentions.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 51 (1986). 783-789.
- [9] Multon, K.D., Brown, S. D., & Lent, R. W. “Relation of self-efficacy beliefs to academic outcomes: A meta-analytic investigation.” Journal of Counseling Psychology 38 (1991), 30-38.
- [10] Vancouver, J.B., Thompson, C. M., & Williams, A. A. “The changing signs in the relationships between self-efficacy, personal goals and performance.” Journal of Applied Psychology 86 (2001). 605-620.
