Overconfidence Bias - Episode 6 | Season 1

Nudging Financial Behaviour

Overconfidence – that feeling that you can do no wrong and your decisions will always work out for you. This is what we’re unpacking in this episode of the Nudging Financial Behaviour podcast. Overconfidence bias is a tricky one because there can be a fine line between confidence and overconfidence. The problem is, one is good for you and the other can be very harmful.

Our guest in this episode is Professor Philip Fernbach – academic and cognitive scientist at the Leeds School of Business in the University of Colorado, Boulder. Philip is also the co-director of the Center for Research on Consumer Financial Decision Making. He gives us some great insights into overconfidence and how to combat this bias.

Useful links:

An article on Professor Philip Fernbach’s overconfidence study – https://www.colorado.edu/today/2021/09/07/overconfidence-bad-your-wealth

More from Dick Fuld’s testimony on the Lehman Brothers collapse - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yCnvxsWfDY

More on that study about lottery tickets - https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/judgment-and-decision-making/article/representativeness-heuristic-and-the-choice-of-lottery-tickets-a-field-experiment/63294E0987CFDF01F565CEDC716B21AC

You can also read more on my blog: https://www.nudgingfinancialbehaviour.com/the-overconfident-investor/

Or watch to the video version of this podcast episode: https://youtu.be/K_oyZHHDoBo

Special thanks to everyone who has helped put this series together:    

• Our sponsors: IG Markets South Africa    
• Producer: Faeron Wheeler of F Creations    
• Music by: Neil Leachman    
• Sound recording and mixing: Giovanni Serci of Soundcast Studios
• Video and editing: Kyle Wesson    
• Hair and makeup: Ida Webster
• Set styling: Michelle Murray of Interiors Etc.
• Voice over: Sizo Mphti