CeDEx 2015-26: How do risk attitudes affect measured confidence? (revised version of 2014-18)

Abstract

We examine the relationship between confidence in own absolute performance and risk attitudes using two confidence elicitation procedures: self-reported (non-incentivised) confidence and an incentivised procedure that elicits the certainty equivalent of a bet based on performance. The former procedure reproduces the "hard-easy effect" (underconfidence in easy tasks and overconfidence in hard tasks) found in a large number of studies using non-incentivised self-reports. The latter procedure produces general underconfidence, which is significantly reduced, but not eliminated when we filter out the effects of risk attitudes. Finally, we find that self-reported confidence correlates significantly with features of individual risk attitudes including parameters of individual probability weighting.

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Now published in Journal of Risk and Uncertainty

Authors

Zahra Murad, Martin Sefton and Chris Starmer

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