The overconfidence bias

- I want you to imagine that you've been…working on a string of projects…and they've all gone really well.…You're talented, hardworking, and ambitious…and man, are you on a roll.…Then, your next assignment comes along.…It's a big challenge, just like the ones before.…You've got a tight deadline, a limited budget, and…lots of pressure to make sure this is a big success.…Then, something bad happens.…You were faced with a critical decision,…and you knew ahead of time…you didn't have all the information,…but you made the decision anyway…and it was dead wrong.…

So, what happened?…You may have been guilty…of a cognitive bias called "overconfidence."…Overconfidence is the unwarranted faith…in one's intuitive reasoning.…We think we're much better at making…decisions than we really are.…Research has shown that we overestimate our…predictive abilities, and we overestimate the precision…of information that we have about a situation.…People are poorly calibrated…in estimating probabilities.…

We tend to believe something is much…