General knowledge overconfidence: Cross-national variations, response style, and ''reality''

Overconfidence in general knowledge is typically stronger among Asian than among Western subject groups. The research described here examined the possibility that such differences might be a manifestation of previously reported extreme response styles on the part of Asian respondents. This hypothesis was evaluated by comparing overconfidence implicit in directly reported judgments and judgments inferred from decisions Chinese and American subjects made about wagers in which they could earn actual, material goods. Contrary to the response style hypothesis, indications of extreme Chinese overconfidence were unaffected by whether judgments were direct or inferred from decisions, However, American subjects' inferred judgments were even more overconfident than their direct judgments. The bias in all subjects' inferred judgments indicates that, in disagreement with some interpretations of recent developments in the literature, overconfidence is indeed a ''real,'' consequential phenomenon, not a data-analytic artifact. An additional, serendipitous finding was that the inferred judgments of both Chinese and American subjects were far less variable than their direct judgments. (C) 1997 Academic Press.