Our tendency to be overconfident in the accuracy of our judgements, specifically in our interpretations and predictions regarding a given data set. "The confidence that individuals have in their beliefs depends mostly on the quality of the story they can tell about what they see, even if they see little" ... "The most potent psychological cause of the illusion is certainly that the people... are exercising high-level skills" (TFAS) It often occurs because of a common failure to distinguish between two stages of prediction: evaluating cases based on available evidence, and predicting actual outcomes. This illusion can be overcome when in an environment that is regular enough to be predictable, and regularities can be learned through prolonged practice.
#prediction
- Penn, A. (2019). Illusion of Validity: Think You Make Good Predictions? Shortform. https://www.shortform.com/blog/illusion-of-validity/
- Kahneman D. and Tversky, A. (1973). On the Psychology of Prediction. Psychology Review. 80(4), 237-251. doi: 10.1037/h0034747
- “Major Depression”. The National Institute of Mental Health. https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/major-depression.shtml
- Kahneman, Daniel (2011). “Don’t Blink! The Hazards of Confidence”. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/magazine/dont-blink-the-hazards-of-confidence.html
- Gilles, F., Gressens, P., Dammann, O., & Leviton, A. (2018). Hypoxia-ischemia is not an antecedent of most preterm brain damage: the illusion of validity. Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology, 60(2), 120–125. doi: 10.1111/dmcn.13483