Confidence

Confidence - a feeling or consciousness of one's powers or of reliance on one's circumstances.  the quality or state of being certain

Self-confidence - confidence in oneself and in one's powers and abilities

Overconfidence - an excess of confidence (as in one's abilities or judgment) : confidence that is not justified 

Hubris -exaggerated pride or self-confidence 

In our western culture, we understand the importance of self-confidence. We teach it to our children, we tell them: "you can do anything you want if you just apply yourself", "anyone can grow up to be President."  Of course in a country of over 345 million people, the chance of anyone becoming President is less than winning the Powerball lottery. We instill "overconfidence" because there is value is in the belief, not necessarilly the reality.

The Value of Confidence... and Overconfidence

Confidence allows us to take on new situations where we have a high probability of success.  Overconfidence allows us to take on new situations where we have lower probabilities of success. Sometimes we succeed, sometimes we don't, but we won't know unless we try. And thus, evolution, and our social systems encourage overconfidence. For example, let's consider a village of 1000 people is under attack by a dragon. And the chance of any one person defeating a dragon is 1 in 100. From a purely rational perspective, no one would be foolish enough to take on the dragon. But with overconfidence, 200 people might give it a shot. And although many would die, one would likely succeed, the village would be saved. And once one you are in a fight with the dragon, being confident that you would succeed is a much better strategy than feeling it was hopeless.

One example of overconfidence is the "Dunning-Kruger" effect. Studies have shown that we ALL overestimate our own expertise and abilities in domains where we have limited competence. It doesn't take much effort to find examples of this in real life. Sports radio is filled with armchair quarterbacks who know for sure why the head coach of the local team is a bonehead. Political talk shows are filled with self-proclaimed experts who know better than those who have studied the issue their whole lives.

But that can actually be useful to our society. Humans see birds flying and want to do the same.  So, many have tried to fly. We've all seen videos of people putting on makeshift wings, jumping off a cliff and flapping, only to meet their demise at the bottom of the cliff.  And while that overconfidence negatively affected that person who tried and is now dead, society benefitted from that overconfidence. We learned what didn't work.  The next person tried again. Not the same thing, but with improvements.  This went on a long time, and hundreds, maybe thousands died trying.  But eventually the Wright brother succeeded, others built on their success, and now we all travel by air.  That happens all the time in our worlds in less grandiose endeavors.  Domesticated cats, hamburgers with cheese, smoked bacon, flush toilets.

Too Much of a Good Thing Can be a Bad Thing

But, like many things in our natural world, too much of a good thing can be a bad thing. Water is essential for life, but too much water and we drown. Water is among the most corrosive substances on Earth, water carved the Grand Canyon. Confidence, even some overconfidence is a good thing, too much is not. It can be corrosive. Our natural overconfidence can lead us to recognize overconfidence in others, but seldom in ourselves.

And that brings us to hubris. The deadliest of sins in both Greek mythology and the Judeo-Christian bible. One is so overconfident in their knowledge, abilities and beliefs, that there is no chance they are wrong. The problem with hubris is not that we become unreasonable, but rather that it puts our reason on a false track. Because if we start with the premise that there is no way we can be wrong, then we can use reason to believe all kinds of justifications that fit the story. For example, if I believe I know for a fact that the world is flat, and I see a picture of the earth from outer space, then I can use reason to believe that the photos were fakes and that the space program was a conspiracy to fool us.

But if overconfidence, and even hubris, are "natural" and favored by evolution, what can we do, how can we overcome it? Is it hopeless to think the world isn't doomed?

The "answer" also comes from evolution. Overconfidence is a subconscious tendency, not an absolute. Evolution also equips us with a conscious, analytical mind that can overcome our tendencies. None of us wants to be that person at the bottom of the cliff.  Evolution has equipped us with reason and xx to help us make wiser choices as to the limits of our overconfidence.  But that line is not the same for all, some will still dare, which benefits us all... in most cases.

How to Manage Overconfidence and Hubris

The key is that those early pioneers jumped themselves, they didn't load their entire village into a makeshift airplane, in which case all would be dead at the bottom of the cliff.  But sometimes the equivalent happened.  Leaders of countries will often lead their followers to jump.  JIm Jones example in Guyana is the extreme example, most outcomes are not so clearcut to the leader.  Hitler led an entire country down a path, that resulted in the death of over 25 million followers.  

U.S.  Presidents have experimented with unprecedented economic, military, and social experiments.  We are in the midst of one now.  Followers are confident in its success, and confident that they aren't being overconfident. Of course, if it doesn't succeed, it will take a lot of people down with them, but their human tendency to overconfidence doesn't consider the possibility.  Evel Knievel never jumped a canyon he didn't think he'd succeed at.  He succeeded more than he failed, but those fails resulted in xx broken bones.  But Evel Knievel didn't have a whole country riding shotgun.

Most human evolution occurred well before our modern social and economic systems.  Throughout evolution, leaders were in the battles themselves.  In modern economics, those with money can pay others to try to jump off the cliff with makeshift wings.  They can try and try again.  In the old system, they only got one chance.  In modern warfare, generals and the commander are at the back of the lines, often safely away from the conflict.  Others put their lives on the line, a lot of soldiers will die before the enemy reaches the leader.

Evolution hasn't really prepared us for this scenario, other than providing us with the ability to reason and think critically.  Which is why those skills are especially important in the modern world. Critical thinking allows us to accept that overconfidence is human trait, to see its evolutionary value, and its value in the modern world (e.g. technological innovation).  But also be able to step back and look at each situation uniquely, to help identify and mitigate situations where that overconfidence can lead us headed for a cliff,

We don't all go out fighting every dragon that comes our way. Evolution equips us with the ability to see how things might appear from other's perspectives; how we would feel if we were in their shoes. And we can use methodologies to extend that to create "objective" views of situations, views that mitigate our own overconfidence.

But a necessary first step is acknowledging our own fallibility, acknowledging that we might be wrong. Or perhaps more practically, acknowledging that we might not be completely right, that complex problems do not have single correct answers.