Under- and Overconfidence

As one of the three NYT articles I chose to review this week, I selected a piece by Spencer Greenberg and Seth Stephens-Davidowitz entitled “You Are Not as Good at Kissing as You Think. But You Are Better at Dancing.”

Within the article is a link to Greenberg’s “Clearer Thinking” website, where you can try out your own confidence in the skill of your choice. My choice, perhaps not too surprisingly, was writing. The bad news was that I am apparently “moderately overconfident” when it comes to writing.

The authors explain that four factors influence our confidence in our skills:

1. Whether we view a skill as part of our personality or traits (somewhat like Carol Dweck’s fixed mindset, I think).
2. Whether the skill is assessed subjectively (“I think I’m intelligent”) or more objectively (here are the results of an IQ test).
3. The difficulty of the skill.
4. The level of our experience with the skill.

I confess that I usually think of writing ability in personality trait terms–some people write well and others do not. I come from a family of writers. My sister has published a book on the United Nations Security Council and my brother was a gifted journalist. Writing skill is certainly in the mind of the beholder, as anyone who has experienced peer review can attest. I’m not sure how to think about the difficulty level of writing. Sometimes, words just flow and other times, one stares helplessly at a screen. Overall, though, I find writing relatively easier than some of the other tasks I do professionally, such as statistical analyses (the next task awaiting me after I finish this post–hurray for structural equation modeling). Finally, I probably have quite a bit of experience compared to many people, as writing is such an important part of a professor’s workload. So all in all, my overconfidence appears to fit the Greenberg & Stephens/Davidowitz model.

I’m not sure how to apply what I have learned. In my world, a little confidence is not a bad thing, even if it is exaggerated a bit. If we think well of our abilities, without being completely out of touch with reality, perhaps that gives us the boost we need to put ourselves out there. I think all writers suffer a little from imposter anxiety, so any enhancement to our confidence is welcome.