Project description DEENESFRITPL Eliminating overconfidence for collective decision making The overconfidence effect is a well-established bias in which a person's subjective confidence in his or her judgements is reliably greater than the objective accuracy of those judgements, especially when confidence is relatively high. This bias is pervasive, costly, and the root cause of many human failures. Previous failed attempts at reducing overconfidence targeted individual decisions. The EU-funded project rid-O aims to reduce this bias at a social level of decision making by determining the underlying mental, neural and social processes involved in overconfidence. The project focuses on three main forms of social decisions but aims to develop a novel causal intervention that creates consensus. Show the project objective Hide the project objective Objective “What would I remove if I had a magic wand? Overconfidence” Daniel Kahneman’s famous fairy-tale wish (The Guardian 18 Jul 15) conveyed a deeply seated pessimism in cognitive scientists that overconfidence is hardwired into human cognition. This bias is pervasive, costly and the root cause of many human failures. Previous failed attempts at reducing overconfidence targeted individual decisions. I propose to reduce this bias at social level of decision making by determining the underlying mental, neural and social processes involved in overconfidence and testing these models by causal interventions. I focus on 3 common forms of social decisions.1.In honest communication of uncertainty (e.g. 2 doctors disagreeing over a diagnosis), overconfidence impairs joint decisions. Combining computational analysis of behavior and brain response, I develop a real-time feedback loop that allows each disagreeing agent to weight her opinion by an individually-tailored signature of her own uncertainty, freeing joint decisions from overconfidence. 2.Focusing on advising and consulting, I use a novel laboratory model (i.e. Advising Game) to develop a theoretical and empirical understanding of overconfidence in the presence of conflict of interest to understand the mental and neural processes underlying strategic manipulation of others. Plus, by connecting the social use of overconfidence to self-esteem and self-worth, I translate this research to a Mental Health application looking at social dysfunctions in Depression.3.Overconfidence impairs group processes (e.g. a panel selecting among grants) by promoting herding (blindly following others) and polarization to extreme viewpoints. Inspired by a recent discovery from my lab, I develop a novel causal intervention that puts together seeking consensus within each group and aggregating consensus opinions across groups to remove herding and polarization.Collective decisions can be made better and rid-O could help this wish come true. Fields of science social sciences Keywords collective decision making confidence overconfidence social influence uncertainty Programme(s) H2020-EU.1.1. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme Topic(s) ERC-2018-COG - ERC Consolidator Grant Call for proposal ERC-2018-COG See other projects for this call Funding Scheme ERC-COG - Consolidator Grant Host institution LUDWIG-MAXIMILIANS-UNIVERSITAET MUENCHEN Net EU contribution € 1 928 912,00 Address GESCHWISTER SCHOLL PLATZ 1 80539 Muenchen Germany See on map Region Bayern Oberbayern München, Kreisfreie Stadt Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Participation in EU R&I programmes Opens in new window HORIZON collaboration network Opens in new window Total cost € 1 928 912,00 Beneficiaries (1) Sort alphabetically Sort by Net EU contribution Expand all Collapse all LUDWIG-MAXIMILIANS-UNIVERSITAET MUENCHEN Germany Net EU contribution € 1 928 912,00 Address GESCHWISTER SCHOLL PLATZ 1 80539 Muenchen See on map Region Bayern Oberbayern München, Kreisfreie Stadt Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Participation in EU R&I programmes Opens in new window HORIZON collaboration network Opens in new window Total cost € 1 928 912,00
