Overprecision increases subsequent surprise

Don A Moore, Derek Schatz, Don A Moore, Derek Schatz

Abstract

Overconfident people should be surprised that they are so often wrong. Are they? Three studies examined the relationship between confidence and surprise in order to shed light on the psychology of overprecision in judgment. Participants reported ex-ante confidence in their beliefs, and after receiving accuracy feedback, they then reported ex-post surprise. Results show that more ex-ante confidence produces less ex-post surprise for correct answers; this relationship reverses for incorrect answers. However, this sensible pattern only holds for some measures of confidence; it fails for confidence-interval measures. The results can help explain the robust durability of overprecision in judgment.

Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1. The aggregated standardized interaction effect…
Fig 1. The aggregated standardized interaction effect of confidence and correct answers on reported ex-post surprise, for Studies 1–3.
Measures are standardized by z-scoring using the grand mean within each study, then aggregating.

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