Thaindian News

London, Sep 15 (IANS) Harbouring an inflated belief that we can easily overcome challenges or win battles actually works to our advantage. Overconfidence beats accurate assessments in a variety of situations, be it sport, business or even war, a new study says.

But this bold approach could also wreck an ever-greater havoc.

Take the 2008 financial crash and the 2003 Iraq war, which are just two examples of an extreme overconfidence backfiring, the journal Nature reports.

A team from the Universities of Edinburgh and California, San Diego, used a maths model to simulate the effects of overconfidence over generations, pitting overconfident, accurate, and underconfident strategies against each other.

The evolutionary model also shows that overconfidence peaks in the face of high levels of uncertainty and risk, according to an Edinburgh statement.

When we face unfamiliar enemies or new technologies, overconfidence becomes an even better strategy.

Study co-author Dominic Johnson, a reader in politics and international relations at Edinburgh said: “The model shows that overconfidence can plausibly evolve in a wide range of environments, as well as the situations in which it will fail.”

“The question now is how to channel human overconfidence so we can exploit its benefits while avoiding occasional disasters,” Johnson added.

The finding shows that overconfidence frequently brings rewards, as long as spoils of conflict are sufficiently large compared with the costs of competing for them.