“Estimated confidence intervals for general knowledge items are usually too narrow. We report five experiments showing that people have much less confidence in these intervals than dictated by the assigned level of confidence. For instance, 90% intervals can be associated with an estimated confidence of 50% or less (and still lower hit rates). Moreover, interval width appears to remain stable over a wide range of instructions (high and low numeric and verbal confidence levels).”
From the scientific paper I mentioned in the first comment they used different questions, here is an example:
“The questionnaires asked for interval estimates of birth years for five famous characters from world history (Mohammed, Newton, Mozart, Napoleon, and Einstein), and the years of death for five other famous persons (Nero, Copernicus, Galileo, Shakespeare, and Lincoln).”
I tested to answer these questions myself with 90% confidence intervals, and my result was that I was correct 7⁄10 questions, so seems like I still am overconfident in my answers even though I just read about it. But to be fair, 10 questions are far from statistical significance.
Wow, really interesting article.
It is really interesting that the median result was negative, although strategic overconfidence as some has pointed out explains some of it.
Found a very interesting paper on the subject of overconfidence: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/227867941_When_90_confidence_intervals_are_50_certain_On_the_credibility_of_credible_intervals
“Estimated confidence intervals for general knowledge items are usually too narrow. We report five experiments showing that people have much less confidence in these intervals than dictated by the assigned level of confidence. For instance, 90% intervals can be associated with an estimated confidence of 50% or less (and still lower hit rates). Moreover, interval width appears to remain stable over a wide range of instructions (high and low numeric and verbal confidence levels).”
From the scientific paper I mentioned in the first comment they used different questions, here is an example:
“The questionnaires asked for interval estimates of birth years for five famous characters from world history (Mohammed, Newton, Mozart, Napoleon, and Einstein), and the years of death for five other famous persons (Nero, Copernicus, Galileo, Shakespeare, and Lincoln).”
I tested to answer these questions myself with 90% confidence intervals, and my result was that I was correct 7⁄10 questions, so seems like I still am overconfident in my answers even though I just read about it. But to be fair, 10 questions are far from statistical significance.