The problem with confidence: too much and too little results in poorer achievement, inner conflict, and social inhibition

Heather E Douglas; Mitchell L Cunningham; Jessika Tisdell; Justin Arneson

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2023.960013

The problem with confidence: too much and too little results in poorer achievement, inner conflict, and social inhibition

Front Psychol. 2023 May 18:14:960013. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.960013. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Heather E Douglas¹, Mitchell L Cunningham², Jessika Tisdell¹, Justin Arneson³

Affiliations

¹ School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Newcastle, Newcastle, NSW, Australia.
² School of Psychology, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
³ General Mills, Minneapolis, MN, United States.

Abstract

Introduction: Confidence is defined as the feelings and thoughts people have during a task that result in judgments about their performance. Evidence suggests that confidence is trait-like, but thus far research on the relative match between confidence and accuracy has been primarily restricted to over-confidence effects, and subject to the methodological flaws involved with using difference scores. We sought to answer an exploratory question in this research, whether discrepancies in ability and confidence in either direction reliably predicted individual differences on a broad-spectrum and commercially available personality test, the California Psychological Inventory (CPI260).

Methods: Participants were 220 employed adults who had previously taken the CPI260 for career development purposes. They were invited to complete a measure of cognitive ability and confidence in return for feedback on the same. Data were modeled using polynomial regression and response surface analysis, to determine whether and how CPI260 personality traits were associated with matches or mismatches between accuracy and confidence in the same test.

Results: We identified negative curvilinear effects along the line of disagreement for four CPI260 scales, suggesting that both under- and over-confidence were associated with personality.

Discussion: In contrast to our expectations, individuals who were under-confident and those who were over-confident had lower achievement potential, less social confidence, and more inner conflict than other individuals in this sample. Although preliminary, these findings suggest that both over-confident and under-confident individuals are aware of potential weaknesses that impede their functioning.

Keywords: ability; confidence; employed adults; personality; response surface analysis.

Grants and funding

This research was funded by a University of Newcastle 2020 Women in Research Fellowship (G1901347) and Industry Funding from Lewis Cadman Consulting awarded to HD.