Submission 151
Overestimation or Overplacement? A Meta-Study of Gender Differences in Overconfidence
PS6-G08-02
Presented by: Erika Domotor
We investigate gender differences in two types of overconfidence commonly referred to as overestimation and overplacement. We aggregate findings from 39 studies in economics published between 2000-2020 in a preregistered Bayesian hierarchical analysis. A previous meta-study by Bandiera et al. (2022) found that both men and women are overconfident, and there is no significant difference between the magnitude of their biases. However, Moore and Healy (2008) define multiple types of overconfidence, which are sometimes inversely related to each other. Based on their terminology, we split the sample of the meta-study into two categories - overestimation and overplacement - and test whether the original results still hold in terms of each type. In the overall sample we found evidence of men’s overconfidence but not of women’s overconfidence. The difference between their biases was also insignificant. In the sub-samples neither men nor women exhibited significant overestimation or overplacement. There was also no significant difference in the magnitude of their biases in either type of overconfidence.