IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/gat/wpaper/1806.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Self Confidence Spillovers and Motivated Beliefs

Author

Listed:
  • Ritwik Banerjee

    (Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, Bannerghatta Main Road, Sundar Ram Shetty Nagar, Bilekahalli, Bengaluru, Karnataka 560076 India)

  • Nabanita Datta Gupta

    (Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University, Denmark, and IZA, Bonn. Fuglesangs Allé 4, 8210 Aarhus V, Denmark)

  • Marie Claire Villeval

    (Univ Lyon, CNRS, GATE L-SE UMR 5824, F-69131 Ecully, France; IZA, Bonn, Germany)

Abstract

Is success in a task used strategically by individuals to motivate their beliefs prior to taking action in a subsequent, unrelated, task? Also, is the distortion of beliefs reinforced for individuals who have lower status in society? Conducting an artefactual field experiment in India, we show that success when competing in a task increases the performers’ self-confidence and competitiveness in the subsequent task. We also find that such spillovers affect the self-confidence of low-status individuals more than that of high-status individuals. Receiving good news under Affirmative Action, however, boosts confidence across tasks regardless of the caste status.

Suggested Citation

  • Ritwik Banerjee & Nabanita Datta Gupta & Marie Claire Villeval, 2018. "Self Confidence Spillovers and Motivated Beliefs," Working Papers 1806, Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Étienne (GATE Lyon St-Étienne), Université de Lyon.
    • Handle: RePEc:gat:wpaper:1806
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: ftp://ftp.gate.cnrs.fr/RePEc/2018/1806.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Azmat, Ghazala & Iriberri, Nagore, 2010. "The importance of relative performance feedback information: Evidence from a natural experiment using high school students," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(7-8), pages 435-452, August.
    2. Uri Gneezy & Jan Potters, 1997. "An Experiment on Risk Taking and Evaluation Periods," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(2), pages 631-645.
    3. Malmendier, Ulrike & Tate, Geoffrey, 2008. "Who makes acquisitions? CEO overconfidence and the market's reaction," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(1), pages 20-43, July.
    4. Uri Gneezy & Kenneth L. Leonard & John A. List, 2009. "Gender Differences in Competition: Evidence From a Matrilineal and a Patriarchal Society," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(5), pages 1637-1664, September.
    5. Eriksson, Tor & Poulsen, Anders & Villeval, Marie Claire, 2009. "Feedback and incentives: Experimental evidence," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(6), pages 679-688, December.
    6. Banerjee, Ritwik & Gupta, Nabanita Datta & Villeval, Marie Claire, 2018. "The spillover effects of affirmative action on competitiveness and unethical behavior," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 567-604.
    7. Roland Bénabou & Jean Tirole, 2005. "Self-Confidence and Personal Motivation," International Economic Association Series, in: Bina Agarwal & Alessandro Vercelli (ed.), Psychology, Rationality and Economic Behaviour, chapter 2, pages 19-57, Palgrave Macmillan.
    8. Olivier Compte & Andrew Postlewaite, 2004. "Confidence-Enhanced Performance," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(5), pages 1536-1557, December.
    9. Hoff, Karla & Pandey, Priyanka, 2014. "Making up people—The effect of identity on performance in a modernizing society," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 118-131.
    10. David Gill & Victoria Prowse, 2012. "A Structural Analysis of Disappointment Aversion in a Real Effort Competition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(1), pages 469-503, February.
    11. Thomas Buser, 2016. "The Impact of Losing in a Competition on the Willingness to Seek Further Challenges," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(12), pages 3439-3449, December.
    12. Peter Schwardmann & Joël van der Weele, 2016. "Deception and Self-Deception," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 16-012/I, Tinbergen Institute.
    13. Muriel Niederle & Lise Vesterlund, 2007. "Do Women Shy Away From Competition? Do Men Compete Too Much?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(3), pages 1067-1101.
    14. Brad M. Barber & Terrance Odean, 2001. "Boys will be Boys: Gender, Overconfidence, and Common Stock Investment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(1), pages 261-292.
    15. Merkle, Christoph & Weber, Martin, 2011. "True overconfidence: The inability of rational information processing to account for apparent overconfidence," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 116(2), pages 262-271.
    16. Mayraz, Guy, 2011. "Wishful thinking," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 121942, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    17. Stephen V. Burks & Jeffrey P. Carpenter & Lorenz Goette & Aldo Rustichini, 2013. "Overconfidence and Social Signalling," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 80(3), pages 949-983.
    18. Juan D. Carrillo & Thomas Mariotti, 2000. "Strategic Ignorance as a Self-Disciplining Device," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 67(3), pages 529-544.
    19. Karla Hoff & Priyanka Pandey, 2006. "Discrimination, Social Identity, and Durable Inequalities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(2), pages 206-211, May.
    20. David Eil & Justin M. Rao, 2011. "The Good News-Bad News Effect: Asymmetric Processing of Objective Information about Yourself," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(2), pages 114-138, May.
    21. Roland Bénabou, 2015. "The Economics of Motivated Beliefs," Revue d'économie politique, Dalloz, vol. 125(5), pages 665-685.
    22. Ertac, Seda, 2011. "Does self-relevance affect information processing? Experimental evidence on the response to performance and non-performance feedback," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 80(3), pages 532-545.
    23. Gary Charness & Aldo Rustichini & Jeroen Ven, 2018. "Self-confidence and strategic behavior," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 21(1), pages 72-98, March.
    24. Erik Hoelzl & Aldo Rustichini, 2005. "Overconfident: Do You Put Your Money On It?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 115(503), pages 305-318, April.
    25. Matthew Rabin & Joel L. Schrag, 1999. "First Impressions Matter: A Model of Confirmatory Bias," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(1), pages 37-82.
    26. Dan Lovallo & Colin Camerer, 1999. "Overconfidence and Excess Entry: An Experimental Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(1), pages 306-318, March.
    27. Maitra, Pushkar & Rosenblum, Daniel, 2022. "Upstream effects of female political reservations," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    28. Gottlieb, Daniel, 2014. "Imperfect memory and choice under risk," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 127-158.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Self Confidence Spillovers and Motivated Beliefs
      by maximorossi in NEP-LTV blog on 2018-12-10 19:24:34

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Banerjee, Ritwik & Gupta, Nabanita Datta & Villeval, Marie Claire, 2020. "Feedback spillovers across tasks, self-confidence and competitiveness," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 127-170.
    2. Markus M. Möbius & Muriel Niederle & Paul Niehaus & Tanya S. Rosenblat, 2022. "Managing Self-Confidence: Theory and Experimental Evidence," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(11), pages 7793-7817, November.
    3. Peter Schwardmann & Joël van der Weele, 2016. "Deception and Self-Deception," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 16-012/I, Tinbergen Institute.
    4. Gary Charness & Aldo Rustichini & Jeroen Ven, 2018. "Self-confidence and strategic behavior," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 21(1), pages 72-98, March.
    5. Bobba, Matteo & Frisancho, Veronica, 2022. "Self-perceptions about academic achievement: Evidence from Mexico City," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 231(1), pages 58-73.
    6. Kai Barron & Christina Gravert, 2022. "Confidence and Career Choices: An Experiment," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 124(1), pages 35-68, January.
    7. Fellner-Röhling, Gerlinde & Hromek, Kristijan & Kleinknecht, Janina & Ludwig, Sandra, 2023. "How to counteract biased self-assessments? An experimental investigation of reactions to social information," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 206(C), pages 1-25.
    8. Heger, Stephanie A. & Papageorge, Nicholas W., 2018. "We should totally open a restaurant: How optimism and overconfidence affect beliefs," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 177-190.
    9. Guy Mayraz, 2011. "Wishful Thinking," CEP Discussion Papers dp1092, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    10. Juan Dubra & Jean-Pierre Benoît & Giorgia Romagnoli, 2019. "Belief elicitation when more than money matters," Documentos de Trabajo/Working Papers 1901, Facultad de Ciencias Empresariales y Economia. Universidad de Montevideo..
    11. Fischer, Mira & Wagner, Valentin, 2019. "Effects of Timing and Reference Frame of Feedback," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 150, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    12. Huffman, David B. & Raymond, Collin & Shvets, Julia, 2023. "Persistent Overconfidence and Biased Memory: Evidence from Managers," IZA Discussion Papers 16283, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Cheung, Stephen L. & Johnstone, Lachlan, 2017. "True Overconfidence, Revealed through Actions: An Experiment," IZA Discussion Papers 10545, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. Fischer, Mira & Wagner, Valentin, 2018. "Effects of timing and reference frame of feedback: Evidence from a field experiment," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Market Behavior SP II 2018-206, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    15. Hestermann, Nina & Le Yaouanq, Yves, 2018. "It\'s not my Fault! Self-Confidence and Experimentation," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 124, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    16. Lia Q. Flores & Miguel A. Fonseca, 2021. "Do in-group biases lead to overconfidence in performance? Experimental evidence," Discussion Papers 2103, University of Exeter, Department of Economics.
    17. Murad, Zahra & Starmer, Chris, 2021. "Confidence snowballing and relative performance feedback," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 190(C), pages 550-572.
    18. Thomas Buser & Leonie Gerhards & Joël Weele, 2018. "Responsiveness to feedback as a personal trait," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 56(2), pages 165-192, April.
    19. Cacault, Maria Paula & Grieder, Manuel, 2019. "How group identification distorts beliefs," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 63-76.
    20. Jonathan F Schulz & Christian Thöni, 2016. "Overconfidence and Career Choice," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(1), pages 1-8, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Motivated beliefs; spillovers; self-confidence; competitiveness; Affirmative Action; experiment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • M52 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics - - - Compensation and Compensation Methods and Their Effects

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gat:wpaper:1806. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Nelly Wirth (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/gateefr.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.