IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ash/wpaper/64.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Believe ... and you are there. On Self-Confidence and Feedback

Author

Listed:
  • Zeinab Aboutalebi

    (European University Institute)

  • Ayush Pant

    (Department of Economics, Ashoka University)

Abstract

Employees are often assigned tasks comprising an idea generation phase followed by an idea implementation phase. Furthermore, it is common for supervisors to give feedback to their employees during this process. Giving feedback involves the following trade-off: while honest feedback encourages employees to discard bad ideas, it can also be demotivating. We derive results on how the agent's self-confidence influences the supervisor's feedback and her performance. First, the supervisor only gives honest feedback to agents who believe in their ability to succeed. Second, receiving honest feedback leads such high self-opinion agents to succeed more frequently. Third, overconfidence is potentially welfare improving. Our results suggest that reducing the gender confidence gap through confidence-building of women can increase welfare and improve performance.

Suggested Citation

  • Zeinab Aboutalebi & Ayush Pant, 2021. "Believe ... and you are there. On Self-Confidence and Feedback," Working Papers 64, Ashoka University, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:ash:wpaper:64
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://dp.ashoka.edu.in/ash/wpaper/paper64_0.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Günther, Christina & Ekinci, Neslihan Arslan & Schwieren, Christiane & Strobel, Martin, 2010. "Women can't jump?--An experiment on competitive attitudes and stereotype threat," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 75(3), pages 395-401, September.
    2. Drew Fudenberg & Luis Rayo, 2019. "Training and Effort Dynamics in Apprenticeship," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(11), pages 3780-3812, November.
    3. Renault, Jérôme & Solan, Eilon & Vieille, Nicolas, 2013. "Dynamic sender–receiver games," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 148(2), pages 502-534.
    4. Roland Bénabou & Jean Tirole, 2003. "Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 70(3), pages 489-520.
    5. 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.
    6. Emeric Henry & Marco Ottaviani, 2019. "Research and the Approval Process: The Organization of Persuasion," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(3), pages 911-955, March.
    7. Emir Kamenica & Matthew Gentzkow, 2011. "Bayesian Persuasion," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(6), pages 2590-2615, October.
    8. Patrick Bolton & Mathias Dewatripont, 2012. "Authority in Organizations [The Handbook of Organizational Economics]," Introductory Chapters,, Princeton University Press.
    9. Golosov, Mikhail & Skreta, Vasiliki & Tsyvinski, Aleh & Wilson, Andrea, 2014. "Dynamic strategic information transmission," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 304-341.
    10. Koellinger, Philipp & Minniti, Maria & Schade, Christian, 2007. ""I think I can, I think I can": Overconfidence and entrepreneurial behavior," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 502-527, August.
    11. Uri Gneezy & Aldo Rustichini, 2004. "Gender and Competition at a Young Age," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(2), pages 377-381, May.
    12. Olga Shurchkov, 2012. "Under Pressure: Gender Differences In Output Quality And Quantity Under Competition And Time Constraints," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 10(5), pages 1189-1213, October.
    13. Robert Gibbons & John Roberts, 2012. "The Handbook of Organizational Economics," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 9889.
    14. David Hirshleifer & Angie Low & Siew Hong Teoh, 2012. "Are Overconfident CEOs Better Innovators?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 67(4), pages 1457-1498, August.
    15. Honryo, Takakazu, 2018. "Dynamic persuasion," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 178(C), pages 36-58.
    16. 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.
    17. Boleslavsky, Raphael & Lewis, Tracy R., 2016. "Evolving influence: Mitigating extreme conflicts of interest in advisory relationships," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 110-134.
    18. Jeffrey C. Ely & Martin Szydlowski, 2020. "Moving the Goalposts," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(2), pages 468-506.
    19. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/1gr6n3t28b94tafji6op8tlqs1 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Aradhye, Aditya & Flesch, János & Staudigl, Mathias & Vermeulen, Dries, 2023. "Incentive compatibility in sender-receiver stopping games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 303-320.
    2. Brandts, Jordi & El Baroudi, Sabrine & Huber, Stefanie J. & Rott, Christina, 2021. "Gender differences in private and public goal setting," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 192(C), pages 222-247.
    3. Beaurain, Guillaume & Masclet, David, 2016. "Does affirmative action reduce gender discrimination and enhance efficiency? New experimental evidence," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 350-362.
    4. S. Cotton, Christopher & Li, Cheng & McIntyre, Frank & P. Price, Joseph, 2015. "Which explanations for gender differences in competition are consistent with a simple theoretical model?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 56-67.
    5. John, June Park, 2017. "Gender differences and the effect of facing harder competition," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 143(C), pages 201-222.
    6. Zhao, Wei & Mezzetti, Claudio & Renou, Ludovic & Tomala, Tristan, 0. "Contracting over persistent information," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society.
    7. Peter Backus & María Cubel & Matej Guid & Santiago Sánchez-Pages & Enrique Lopez Manas, 2016. "Gender, competition and performance:Evidence from real tournaments," Working Papers 2016/27, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    8. Yinjunjie Zhang & Zhicheng Xu & Marco A Palma, 2019. "Conveniently dependent or naively overconfident? An experimental study on the reaction to external help," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(5), pages 1-18, May.
    9. Peter Backus & Maria Cubel & Matej Guid & Santiago Sánchez‐Pagés & Enrique López Mañas, 2023. "Gender, competition, and performance: Evidence from chess players," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 14(1), pages 349-380, January.
    10. Boschini, Anne & Dreber, Anna & von Essen, Emma & Muren, Astri & Ranehill, Eva, 2019. "Gender, risk preferences and willingness to compete in a random sample of the Swedish population✰," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    11. Iriberri, Nagore & Rey-Biel, Pedro, 2017. "Stereotypes are only a threat when beliefs are reinforced: On the sensitivity of gender differences in performance under competition to information provision," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 99-111.
    12. Czibor, Eszter & Onderstal, Sander & Sloof, Randolph & van Praag, C. Mirjam, 2020. "Does relative grading help male students? Evidence from a field experiment in the classroom," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    13. Cueva, Carlos & Rustichini, Aldo, 2015. "Is financial instability male-driven? Gender and cognitive skills in experimental asset markets," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 330-344.
    14. Jetter, Michael & Walker, Jay K., 2018. "The gender of opponents: Explaining gender differences in performance and risk-taking?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 238-256.
    15. Jacopo Bizzotto & Adrien Vigier, 2021. "Can a better informed listener be easier to persuade?," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 72(3), pages 705-721, October.
    16. Arthur Schram & Jordi Brandts & Klarita Gërxhani, 2019. "Social-status ranking: a hidden channel to gender inequality under competition," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 22(2), pages 396-418, June.
    17. Anna Dreber & Emma Essen & Eva Ranehill, 2014. "Gender and competition in adolescence: task matters," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 17(1), pages 154-172, March.
    18. Baier, Alexandra & Davis, Brent J. & Jaber-Lopez, Tarek & Seidl, Michael, 2018. "Gender, competition and the effect of feedback and task: An experiment," Working Paper Forschungsförderung 062, Hans-Böckler-Stiftung, Düsseldorf.
    19. Jetter, Michael & Walker, Jay K., 2016. "Gender in Jeopardy!: The Role of Opponent Gender in High-Stakes Competition," IZA Discussion Papers 9669, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. Cotton, Christopher & McIntyre, Frank & Price, Joseph, 2013. "Gender differences in repeated competition: Evidence from school math contests," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 52-66.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Dynamic cheap-talk;

    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:ash:wpaper:64. 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: Ashoka University (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.ashoka.edu.in .

    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.