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Overconfidence and career choice

Author

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  • Jonathan Schulz

    (University of Nottingham, School of Economics)

  • Christian Thoeni

    (University of Lausanne)

Abstract

People self-assess their relative ability when making career choices. Thus, confidence in own abilities is likely an important factor for selection into various career paths. In a sample of 711 first-year students we examine whether there are systematic differences in confidence levels across fields of study. We find evidence for selection based on our experimental confidence measure: While Political Science students exhibit the highest confidence levels, students of Humanities range at the other end of the scale. This may have important implications for subsequent earnings and/or professions students select themselves in.

Suggested Citation

  • Jonathan Schulz & Christian Thoeni, 2014. "Overconfidence and career choice," Discussion Papers 2014-15, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    • Handle: RePEc:not:notcdx:2014-15
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Kai Barron & Christina Gravert, 2022. "Confidence and Career Choices: An Experiment," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 124(1), pages 35-68, January.
    2. Thaler, Michael, 2021. "Gender differences in motivated reasoning," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 191(C), pages 501-518.
    3. Cristian Trejos & Adrian van Deemen & Yeny E. Rodriguez & Juan M. Gomez, 2019. "Overconfidence and disposition effect in the stock market : A micro world based setting," Post-Print hal-02312273, HAL.
    4. Andres Espitia, 2024. "Confidence and Organizations," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_2024_521, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany.
    5. Jonathan Schulz & Uwe Sunde & Petra Thiemann & Christian Thoeni, 2019. "Selection into Experiments: Evidence from a Population of Students," Discussion Papers 2019-09, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    6. Grosch, Kerstin & Fischer, Sabine, 2024. "Gender equivalence in overconfidence A large-scale experimental study in a non-WEIRD country," Department for Strategy and Innovation Working Paper Series 02/2024, WU Vienna University of Economics and Business.
    7. Thiemann, Petra & Schulz, Jonathan & Sunde, Uwe & Thöni, Christian, 2022. "Selection into experiments: New evidence on the role of preferences, cognition, and recruitment protocols," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    8. Vincent Laferrière & David Staubli & Christian Thöni, 2023. "Explaining Excess Entry in Winner-Take-All Markets," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(2), pages 1050-1069, February.
    9. 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.
    10. Mohammed Abdellaoui & Han Bleichrodt & Cédric Gutierrez, 2023. "Unpacking Overconfident Behavior When Betting on Oneself," Post-Print hal-04383402, HAL.
    11. Trejos, Cristian & van Deemen, Adrian & Rodríguez, Yeny E. & Gómez, Juan M., 2019. "Overconfidence and disposition effect in the stock market: A micro world based setting," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 21(C), pages 61-69.
    12. Flores, Lia Q. & Fonseca, Miguel A., 2024. "Do in-group biases lead to overconfidence in performance? Experimental evidence," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 111(C).

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    Keywords

    Overconfidence; selection; field of study; career choice;
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