Social comparison and confidence: When thinking you’re better than average predicts overconfidence (and when it does not)

A common social comparison bias—the better-than-average-effect—is frequently described as psychologically equivalent to the individual-level judgment bias known as overconfidence. However, research has found “Hard–easy” effects for each bias that yield a seemingly paradoxical reversal: Hard tasks tend to produce overconfidence but worse-than-average perceptions, whereas easy tasks tend to produce underconfidence and better-than-average effects....