É possível confiar nos excessos? Avaliando o excesso de confiança em conhecimentos políticos

Abstract

Overconfidence is one of the most widely studied and discussed self-assessment biases in the literature. However, it is still not widespread in Brazil, with most of the works focusing on the area of behavioral finance. Much is discussed about the human tendency to exacerbate their own evaluations, the accuracy of which in judging their performance is reported as little or none. Some factors are pointed out as possible drivers of self-assessment biases, such as the subject's familiarity with the analyzed topic. Over the years, some results have been superimposed in the literature, and some terms end up covering more than one behavior. Therefore, measures of overestimation, overplacement, and overconfidence in 400 adults subjects were assessed in relation to their performance in a questionnaire on Brazilian political knowledge. The results indicated the existence of the studied behaviors, but to a lesser extent than previously reported in the literature; the most prominent behavior in our sample was the overplacement of one’s rank in relation to the others. The methodological aspects involved in the study of these biases are discussed within the possible factors associated with the exacerbation of previous results and the need to delimit an specific theme when analyzing self-assessments.