How accurate are people's confidence levels when answering questions?

Research shows a significant gap between how confident people feel and their actual accuracy. For example, when people feel 90% certain, they are often right only 75% of the time, and those who are most confident (91-100%) can be correct only about 51% of the time.

What is the Dunning-Kruger effect?

The Dunning-Kruger effect describes how individuals with low competence in a particular area tend to overestimate their ability, while those who are highly competent may underestimate theirs. The popular 'Mount Stupid' graph often misrepresents the nuance of this cognitive bias.

Can overconfidence ever be an advantage?

Yes, overconfidence can improve social status by making individuals appear more competent and leading others to trust their advice. This can be advantageous in leadership roles, interviews, and political campaigns, even if the confidence isn't fully warranted.

Why do our brains struggle to accurately assess our knowledge?

Assessing accuracy is mentally taxing. Our brains have limited processing capacity and often use mental shortcuts (heuristics) to simplify complex information, which can lead to cognitive biases like overconfidence.

What is calibration in relation to overconfidence?

Calibration refers to how well your confidence in your knowledge matches your actual accuracy. Being perfectly calibrated means if you're 80% confident, you're right 80% of the time. Most people are not well-calibrated and tend to be overconfident.

How can we reduce overconfidence?

To combat overconfidence, try keeping score of your judgments, practicing intellectual humility, actively seeking out and understanding opposing viewpoints, and embracing the wisdom of the crowd.

Why People Are So Confident When They're Wrong

Veritasium

Education4 min read25 min video

Nov 12, 2025|5,633,850 views|177,418|11,527

veritasium science physics Veritasium psychology misconception stupid smart intelligence knowledge board game dunning kruger

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Key Moments

TL;DR

Overconfidence stems from cognitive biases and the brain's limitations, leading to costly errors. Cultivating intellectual humility and seeking feedback are key to better calibration.

Key Insights

Overconfidence is a pervasive cognitive bias implicated in major disasters and everyday errors.

People tend to overestimate their knowledge and abilities, a phenomenon known as poor calibration.

The Dunning-Kruger effect suggests that those with less knowledge are often the most overconfident.

Cognitive limitations, such as short-term memory capacity and reliance on heuristics, contribute to overconfidence.

Overconfidence can be advantageous for social status and influence, even when inaccurate.

Uncertainty, noise in feedback, and complexity can amplify overconfidence in both individuals and organizations.

THE DANGERS OF OVERCONFIDENCE

Overconfidence is identified as a dangerous cognitive bias that leads individuals and groups into risky decisions, commitments, and contests that often result in failure. Historical examples, from the Titanic to the Chernobyl disaster and the Challenger space shuttle explosion, illustrate the catastrophic consequences of this bias. Even in everyday life, an overwhelming majority of people believe they are better than average drivers, a statistical impossibility, highlighting how widespread and ingrained this bias is.

THE MISMATCH BETWEEN CERTAINTY AND ACCURACY

Simple quiz questions reveal a stark discrepancy between people's expressed confidence and their actual accuracy. Research consistently shows that when individuals feel 90% certain about an answer, they are only correct about 75% of the time. In an online version of this study, those who were 91-100% sure of their answers were correct only 51% of the time. This poor calibration affects everyone, including experts like chief economists who are often too sure of their economic forecasts.

EXPLORING THE CAUSES OF OVERCONFIDENCE

The tendency to overestimate our abilities is multifaceted. One explanation is the egocentric motivation to feel good about ourselves and appear knowledgeable. However, it could also stem from what might be perceived as 'stupidity' or a lack of understanding. The widely recognized Dunning-Kruger effect illustrates that individuals with limited knowledge often possess the highest confidence, which tends to decrease as they gain more expertise, with masters sometimes exhibiting slight underconfidence.

COGNITIVE LIMITATIONS AND MENTAL SHORTCUTS

Cognitive limitations play a significant role in overconfidence, particularly the brain's capacity to process information. Short-term memory constraints and the reliance on mental shortcuts, or heuristics, can lead to systematic errors, or cognitive biases. For instance, people may substitute difficult questions with easier, related ones, leading to inaccurate self-assessments. Assessing accuracy is mentally taxing, pushing the brain to employ these shortcuts when overwhelmed, rather than deliberately being arrogant.

THE SOCIAL ADVANTAGES OF CONFIDENCE

Interestingly, overconfidence can offer social advantages. Studies suggest that overconfident individuals are more likely to be perceived as leaders and have their ideas influence groups, even when their actual abilities are average. Brain activity scans show that confident advice triggers reward-processing regions, indicating a biological predisposition to favor confident individuals. This creates an incentive for people to appear confident in interviews and public roles, regardless of their actual competence.

COMPLEXITY, NOISY FEEDBACK, AND THE BEARINGS COLLAPSE

The collapse of Bearings Bank, caused by trader Nick Leon's massive overconfidence amplified by complex markets and unreliable feedback, serves as a stark warning. In environments with unclear consequences for predictions, like financial markets or political punditry, it becomes difficult to judge the accuracy of one's confidence. Leon's ability to hide losses and publicize fake profits, coupled with management's misplaced faith, led to a $2.8 billion loss. This highlights how organizational overconfidence, fed by misleading information and a lack of critical questioning, can be devastating.

STRATEGIES FOR IMPROVING CALIBRATION

Combating overconfidence requires conscious effort and intellectual humility. One effective strategy is to practice calibrating confidence judgments by keeping track of predictions and outcomes, expressing uncertainty through probabilistic statements rather than absolutes. Actively seeking and listening to dissenting opinions and critics is crucial, as understanding their perspectives and the information they possess can lead to better decision-making. True wisdom lies not in absolute certainty, but in recognizing the limits of one's own knowledge.

ELEMENTS OF TRUTH: A GAME TO COMBAT OVERCONFIDENCE

To address this pervasive issue, a new board game called 'Elements of Truth' has been developed. This game features science trivia questions where points awarded are based on confidence levels, encouraging players to bid cautiously and discuss their reasoning. By regularly engaging players in discussions that extend beyond the initial questions, the game aims to foster better calibration and understanding of one's own knowledge limits. The game is launching via Kickstarter, inviting community input for future question packs.

Mentioned in This Episode

●Products

●Tools

●Companies

●Organizations

●Studies Cited

●Concepts

●People Referenced

Combating Overconfidence: Dos and Don'ts

Practical takeaways from this episode

Do This

Keep track and keep score of your judgments to better calibrate your confidence.

Be intellectually humble and acknowledge what you don't know.

Listen to people who disagree with you and understand their arguments.

Seek feedback, especially from controlled environments with clear outcomes.

Recognize the limits of your own certainty.

Avoid This

Don't overestimate your abilities, especially in complex or uncertain situations.

Don't rely solely on your own judgment without seeking external input.

Don't substitute hard questions with easier, unrelated ones.

Don't get blindsided by noisy or inconsistent feedback.

Don't fall for the 'Mount Stupid' curve; actual Dunning-Kruger findings are more nuanced.

Confidence vs. Accuracy in Research

Data extracted from this episode

Confidence Level	Reported Accuracy	Actual Accuracy (Percentage Correct)
90% certain	90%	75%
91-100% sure	91-100%	51%
53% sure (forecasters)	53%	23%

Common Questions

Overconfidence is the tendency to overestimate our abilities, knowledge, or the accuracy of our judgments. It's dangerous because it can lead us to take excessive risks, make poor decisions, and has been implicated in major disasters.

Topics

Overconfidence Calibration Financial Disasters Shortsightedness

Mentioned in this video

studyHansen, Jesus, and Winman study

A 2008 study investigating the link between short-term memory capacity, accuracy, and overconfidence, finding that narrower ranges indicated significant overconfidence.

conceptDunning-Kruger effect

A cognitive bias where people with low ability at a task overestimate their ability. The video discusses the misinterpreted 'Mount Stupid' graph associated with it.

toolTitanic

A historical disaster cited as an example of how overconfidence can lead to catastrophic failure.

organizationUniversity of Sussex

Researchers at this university used fMRI to show that confident advice increased activity in the brain region associated with rewards, suggesting biological tuning to confidence.

conceptMount Stupid curve

A popular but inaccurate representation of the Dunning-Kruger effect, often found in memes, showing high confidence at low knowledge.

toolGreat Hanshin earthquake

A 1995 earthquake in Japan that devastated Kobe, causing a significant plunge in the stock market and contributing to Nick Leon's final losses.

productElements of Truth

A new board game created by Veritasium that uses science trivia questions to highlight the importance of confidence calibration.

toolaccount 88888

An obscure error account used by banks to solve small discrepancies, which Nick Leon used to hide his initial trading loss.

companyMorton Thiokol

The company that manufactured the rocket boosters for the Challenger Space Shuttle, whose engineers' concerns about cold weather were overruled.

studyConti study

A 2023 study where increased memory load led to less accurate confidence estimates, suggesting assessing accuracy is mentally taxing.