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How egocentrism and optimism change in response to feedback in repeated competitions

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  • Rose, Jason P.
  • Windschitl, Paul D.

Abstract

People tend to egocentrically focus on how adverse or beneficial conditions in competitions affect the self, while inadequately considering the comparable impact on opponents. This leads to overoptimism for a victory in easy tasks and underoptimism in hard tasks. Four experiments investigated whether experience and performance feedback in a multi-round competition would influence egocentric weighting and optimism biases across rounds. The results indicated that egocentric weighting and optimism biases decreased across rounds. However, this apparent debiasing occurred under restrictive conditions, and participants did not generalize their learned, non-egocentric tendencies to novel contexts. The roles of differential confidence and surface/structural similarity are discussed as reasons why optimism biases were generally pervasive.

Suggested Citation

  • Rose, Jason P. & Windschitl, Paul D., 2008. "How egocentrism and optimism change in response to feedback in repeated competitions," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 105(2), pages 201-220, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jobhdp:v:105:y:2008:i:2:p:201-220
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Moore, Don A. & Cain, Daylian M., 2007. "Overconfidence and underconfidence: When and why people underestimate (and overestimate) the competition," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 103(2), pages 197-213, July.
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    Cited by:

    1. Daylian M. Cain & Don A. Moore & Uriel Haran, 2015. "Making sense of overconfidence in market entry," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(1), pages 1-18, January.
    2. Murad, Zahra & Starmer, Chris, 2021. "Confidence snowballing and relative performance feedback," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 190(C), pages 550-572.
    3. Jason P. Rose & Paul D. Windschitl & Andrew R. Smith, 2012. "Debiasing egocentrism and optimism biases in repeated competitions," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 7(6), pages 761-767, November.
    4. repec:cup:judgdm:v:7:y:2012:i:6:p:761-767 is not listed on IDEAS

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