It is noteworthy that there are situations in which people exhibit overconfidence even in predicting their own behavior (Vallone, Griffm, Lin, & Ross, 1990). The key variable, therefore, is not the target of prediction (self versus other) but rather the relation between the strength and the weight of the available evidence.
This cuts against the conclusion drawn by Yudkowsky 2007. The Vallone citation is to this freely downloadable paper:
To your specific question of “how often people change their mind”, if you download the paper you’ll see that there were a variety of self-prediction topics. Accuracy varied but I’d gloss it as “about 70%”, meaning that the subjects changed their mind about 30% of the time. For questions where the subjects predicted their future actions with 90-100% confidence, they changed their mind about 25% of the time.
The cited paper is freely downloadable: The weighing of evidence and the determinants of confidence. Here is the rest of the quoted paragraph:
This cuts against the conclusion drawn by Yudkowsky 2007. The Vallone citation is to this freely downloadable paper:
To your specific question of “how often people change their mind”, if you download the paper you’ll see that there were a variety of self-prediction topics. Accuracy varied but I’d gloss it as “about 70%”, meaning that the subjects changed their mind about 30% of the time. For questions where the subjects predicted their future actions with 90-100% confidence, they changed their mind about 25% of the time.
So, we change our minds more often than we think.