ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR AND HUMAN DECISION PROCESSES, VOLUME 70, ISSUE 2

Suppose a person is presented with two-alternative Overconfidence in general knowledge is typically general knowledge questions like the following: “Which stronger among Asian than among Western subject contains more calories per unit of weight: (a) bread or groups. The research described here examined the pos(b) rice? ” The person picks one of the alternatives and sibility that such differences might be a manifestation then states a 50–100% probability judgment that the of previously reported extreme response styles on the chosen alternative really is correct. Under broad part of Asian respondents. This hypothesis was evalu(though not universal) conditions, such judgments tend ated by comparing overconfidence implicit in directly reported judgments and judgments inferred from decito be overconfident in the sense that, on average, they sions Chinese and American subjects made about waare higher than the proportions of questions respongers in which they could earn actual, material goods. dents in fact answer correctly (cf. Yates, 1990, ChapContrary to the response style hypothesis, indications ter 4). of extreme Chinese overconfidence were unaffected by Beginning with the work of George Wright and Lawwhether judgments were direct or inferred from decirence Phillips (e.g., Wright, Phillips, Whalley, Choo, Ng, sions. However, American subjects’ inferred judgments Tan, & Wisudha, 1978), there have been repeated demwere even more overconfident than their direct judgonstrations of cross-national variations in general ments. The bias in all subjects’ inferred judgments indicates that, in disagreement with some interpretations knowledge overconfidence (e.g., Lee, Yates, Shinotsuka, of recent developments in the literature, overconfiSingh, Onglatco, Yen, Gupta, & Bhatnagar, 1995; Whitdence is indeed a “real,” consequential phenomenon, comb, Önkal, Curley, & Benson, 1995; Yates, Zhu, not a data-analytic artifact. An additional, serendipiRonis, Wang, Shinotsuka, & Toda, 1989; Zhang, 1992). tous finding was that the inferred judgments of both The typical finding, which surprises most people (Yates, Chinese and American subjects were far less variable Lee, & Shinotsuka, 1996), is that Asians exhibit even than their direct judgments. q 1997 Academic Press more overconfidence than Westerners. Japanese and Singaporeans are significant exceptions. It is noteworthy, however, that Japan and Singapore have many This research was supported by U.S. National Science Foundation distinctive Western characteristics. Consider, for inGrant SES92-10027 to the University of Michigan and Grant NSC852413-H 033-004 from the R.O. C. National Science Council to Chung stance, Japan’s century-old self-conscious effort to learn Yuan University. It is our great pleasure to acknowledge the translafrom the West’s technological and economic successes tion assistance of Dawei Liu and the data analysis contributions of (Reischauer & Jansen, 1995). Or take Singapore’s hisWinston Sieck. We also appreciate the helpful comments on a previous tory as a British colony and international trading cenversion of this article provided by two anonymous reviewers. Address correspondence and reprint requests to J. Frank Yates, ter, or its people’s nearly universal knowledge of EnJudgment and Decision Laboratory, Department of Psychology, Uniglish, the language of instruction in its schools versity of Michigan, 525 East University Avenue, Ann Arbor, MI (LePoer, 1991). 48109-1109. E-mail: jfyates@umich.edu; or Ju-Whei Lee, Department General knowledge overconfidence, a special form of of Psychology, Chung Yuan University, Chungli, Taiwan, ROC. Email: jwlee@cchp01.cc. cycu.edu. tw. probability judgment miscalibration, is the subject of