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Strategically delusional

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Alice Soldà Open the ORCID record for Alice Soldà [Opens in a new window] ,
Changxia Ke ,
Lionel Page  and
William von Hippel
Alice Soldà*
Affiliation:
Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, Germany Univ Lyon, Université Lyon 2, GATE UMR 5824, 93 Chemin des Mouilles, 69130 Ecully, France Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia
Changxia Ke*
Affiliation:
Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia
Lionel Page*
Affiliation:
University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, Australia
William von Hippel*
Affiliation:
University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia
*
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
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Abstract

We aim to test the hypothesis that overconfidence arises as a strategy to influence others in social interactions. To address this question, we design an experiment in which participants are incentivized either to form accurate beliefs about their performance at a test, or to convince a group of other participants that they performed well. We also vary participants’ ability to gather information about their performance. Our results show that participants are more likely to (1) overestimate their performance when they anticipate that they will try to persuade others and (2) bias their information search in a manner conducive to receiving more positive feedback, when given the chance to do so. In addition, we also find suggestive evidence that this increase in confidence has a positive effect on participants’ persuasiveness.

Keywords

OverconfidenceMotivated cognitionSelf-deceptionPersuasionInformation samplingExperiment

JEL classification

C91: Laboratory, Individual Behavior D83: Search • Learning • Information and Knowledge • Communication • Belief • Unawareness
Type
Original Paper
Information
Experimental Economics , Volume 23 , Issue 3 , September 2020 , pp. 604 - 631
Copyright
Copyright © 2019 Economic Science Association

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Footnotes

Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10683-019-09636-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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