IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/joepsy/v75y2019ipbs016748701730747x.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Task difficulty and overconfidence. Evidence from distance running

Author

Listed:
  • Krawczyk, Michał
  • Wilamowski, Maciej

Abstract

In this project we investigate the impact of task difficulty on overestimation, using data from over 1.6 million amateur distance runners. Overestimation is measured in terms of relative error in forecasted finishing time as well as relative slowing down in the latter half of the course. Longer (esp. the marathon compared to 10 km) and slower races are understood to be more difficult than shorter and faster races. Likewise, comparatively slow runners are assumed to be facing a relatively difficult task. The general finding is that greater task difficulty leads to greater overestimation, a clear tendency only weakly moderated by demographic variables such as gender and age.

Suggested Citation

  • Krawczyk, Michał & Wilamowski, Maciej, 2019. "Task difficulty and overconfidence. Evidence from distance running," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 75(PB).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:joepsy:v:75:y:2019:i:pb:s016748701730747x
    DOI: 10.1016/j.joep.2018.12.002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016748701730747X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.joep.2018.12.002?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Klayman, Joshua & Soll, Jack B. & Gonzalez-Vallejo, Claudia & Barlas, Sema, 1999. "Overconfidence: It Depends on How, What, and Whom You Ask, , , , , , , , ," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 79(3), pages 216-247, September.
    2. Krajc, Marian & Ortmann, Andreas, 2008. "Are the unskilled really that unaware? An alternative explanation," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 29(5), pages 724-738, November.
    3. Bengtsson, Claes & Persson, Mats & Willenhag, Peter, 2005. "Gender and overconfidence," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 86(2), pages 199-203, February.
    4. repec:cup:judgdm:v:12:y:2017:i:1:p:29-41 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Nekby, Lena & Thoursie, Peter Skogman & Vahtrik, Lars, 2008. "Gender and self-selection into a competitive environment: Are women more overconfident than men?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 100(3), pages 405-407, September.
    6. Birk, Erica G. & Lee, Logan M. & Waddell, Glen R., 2016. "Do Men Matter to Female Competition Even When They Don't?," IZA Discussion Papers 10184, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Menkhoff, Lukas & Schmeling, Maik & Schmidt, Ulrich, 2013. "Overconfidence, experience, and professionalism: An experimental study," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 92-101.
    8. Erica G. Birk & Logan M. Lee & Glen R. Waddell, 2016. "Do Men Matter to Female Competition Even When They Don’t?," Working Papers id:11351, eSocialSciences.
    9. Marian Krajc, 2008. "Are the Unskilled Really That Unaware? Understanding Seemingly Biased Self-Assessments," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp373, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.
    10. Kovalchik, Stephanie & Camerer, Colin F. & Grether, David M. & Plott, Charles R. & Allman, John M., 2005. "Aging and decision making: a comparison between neurologically healthy elderly and young individuals," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 58(1), pages 79-94, September.
    11. Eric J. Allen & Patricia M. Dechow & Devin G. Pope & George Wu, 2017. "Reference-Dependent Preferences: Evidence from Marathon Runners," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(6), pages 1657-1672, June.
    12. Uri Gneezy & Muriel Niederle & Aldo Rustichini, 2003. "Performance in Competitive Environments: Gender Differences," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(3), pages 1049-1074.
    13. Kataria, Mitesh, 2017. "How long do you think it will take? Field Evidence on Gender Differences in Time Optimism," Working Papers in Economics 694, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    14. Michał Krawczyk & Maciej Wilamowski, 2015. "Are we all overconfident in the long run? Evidence from one million marathon participants," Working Papers 2015-01, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw.
    15. Lambert, Jérôme & Bessière, Véronique & N’Goala, Gilles, 2012. "Does expertise influence the impact of overconfidence on judgment, valuation and investment decision?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 33(6), pages 1115-1128.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Hoyer, Britta & van Huizen, Thomas & Keijzer, Linda & Rezaei, Sarah & Rosenkranz, Stephanie & Westbrock, Bastian, 2020. "Gender, competitiveness, and task difficulty: Evidence from the field," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    2. Soetevent, Adriaan R., 2022. "Short run reference points and long run performance. (No) Evidence from running data," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).

    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. Kataria, Mitesh, 2017. "How long do you think it will take? Field Evidence on Gender Differences in Time Optimism," Working Papers in Economics 694, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    2. Gerdes, Christer & Gränsmark, Patrik, 2010. "Strategic behavior across gender: A comparison of female and male expert chess players," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(5), pages 766-775, October.
    3. Haeckl, Simone, 2022. "Image concerns in ex-ante self-assessments–Gender differences and behavioral consequences," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    4. Migheli, Matteo, 2010. "Gender at work: Productivity and incentives," POLIS Working Papers 142, Institute of Public Policy and Public Choice - POLIS.
    5. Baiba Renerte & Jan Hausfeld & Torsten Twardawski, 2020. "Gender, overconfidence, and optimal group composition for investment decisions," TWI Research Paper Series 121, Thurgauer Wirtschaftsinstitut, Universität Konstanz.
    6. Migheli, Matteo, 2015. "Gender at work: Incentives and self-sorting," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 10-18.
    7. Michał Krawczyk & Maciej Wilamowski, 2015. "Are we all overconfident in the long run? Evidence from one million marathon participants," Working Papers 2015-01, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw.
    8. Pekkarinen, Tuomas, 2015. "Gender differences in behaviour under competitive pressure: Evidence on omission patterns in university entrance examinations," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 94-110.
    9. Dato, Simon & Nieken, Petra, 2014. "Gender differences in competition and sabotage," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 64-80.
    10. Münich, Daniel & Jurajda, Štěpán, 2008. "Gender Gap in Performance under Competitive Pressure," CEPR Discussion Papers 7059, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    11. Helen X. H. Bao & Steven Haotong Li, 2016. "Overconfidence And Real Estate Research: A Survey Of The Literature," The Singapore Economic Review (SER), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 61(04), pages 1-24, September.
    12. Feld, Jan & Sauermann, Jan & de Grip, Andries, 2017. "Estimating the relationship between skill and overconfidence," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 18-24.
    13. Bernd Frick & Clarissa Laura Maria Spiess Bru & Daniel Kaimann, 2023. "Are Women (Really) More Lenient? Gender Differences in Expert Evaluations," Working Papers Dissertations 106, Paderborn University, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics.
    14. Stepan Jurajda & Daniel Munich, 2008. "Gender Gap in Admission Performance under Competitive Pressure," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp371, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.
    15. Michailova, Julija, 2010. "Overconfidence, Risk Aversion and Individual Financial Decisions in Experimental Asset Markets," MPRA Paper 53114, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Jan 2014.
    16. Brookins, Philip & Lucas, Adriana & Ryvkin, Dmitry, 2014. "Reducing within-group overconfidence through group identity and between-group confidence judgments," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 1-12.
    17. Kevin Boudreau & Nilam Kaushik, 2020. "The Gender Gap in Tech & Competitive Work Environments? Field Experimental Evidence from an Internet-of-Things Product Development Platform," NBER Working Papers 27154, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. repec:cup:judgdm:v:12:y:2017:i:1:p:29-41 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Daniela Beckmann & Lukas Menkhoff, 2008. "Will Women Be Women? Analyzing the Gender Difference among Financial Experts," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(3), pages 364-384, August.
    20. Gignac, Gilles E. & Zajenkowski, Marcin, 2020. "The Dunning-Kruger effect is (mostly) a statistical artefact: Valid approaches to testing the hypothesis with individual differences data," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    21. Leitner, Stephan & Rausch, Alexandra & Behrens, Doris A., 2017. "Distributed investment decisions and forecasting errors: An analysis based on a multi-agent simulation model," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 258(1), pages 279-294.

    More about this item

    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:eee:joepsy:v:75:y:2019:i:pb:s016748701730747x. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/joep .

    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.