To say that you’re underconfident is to say that you believe you’re correct more often than you believe yourself to be correct. The claim of underconfidence is not a claim underconfident people tend to make. Underconfident people usually don’t muster enough confidence about their tendency to be right to conclude that they’re underconfident.
It’s self-contradictory only in the same way as “I believe a lot of false things” is. (Maybe a closer analogy: “I make a lot of mistakes.”.) In other words, it make a general claim that conflicts with various (unspecified) particular beliefs one has from time to time.
I am generally underconfident. That is: if I look at how sure I am about things (measured by how I feel, what I say, what in some cases how willing I am to take risks based on those opinions), with hindsight it turns out that my confidence is generally too low. In some sense, recognizing this should automatically increase my confidence levels until they stop being too low—but in practice my brain doesn’t work that way. (I repeat: in some sense it should, and that’s the only sense in which saying “I am generally underconfident” is self-contradictory.)
I make a lot of mistakes. That is: if I look at the various things I have from time to time believed to be true, with hindsight it turns out that quite often those beliefs are incorrect. It seems likely that I have a bunch of incorrect current beliefs, but of course I don’t know which ones they are.
(Perhaps I’ve introduced a new inconsistency by saying both “I am generally underconfident” and “I make a lot of mistakes”. As it happens, on the whole I think I haven’t; in any case that’s a red herring.)
Yes, that’s why I said it was a bit self contradictory. The point is, you got to have two confidence levels involved that aren’t consistent with each other one being lower than the other.
No, that is an entirely coherent claim for a person to make and not even a particularly implausible one.
To say that you’re underconfident is to say that you believe you’re correct more often than you believe yourself to be correct. The claim of underconfidence is not a claim underconfident people tend to make. Underconfident people usually don’t muster enough confidence about their tendency to be right to conclude that they’re underconfident.
It’s self-contradictory only in the same way as “I believe a lot of false things” is. (Maybe a closer analogy: “I make a lot of mistakes.”.) In other words, it make a general claim that conflicts with various (unspecified) particular beliefs one has from time to time.
I am generally underconfident. That is: if I look at how sure I am about things (measured by how I feel, what I say, what in some cases how willing I am to take risks based on those opinions), with hindsight it turns out that my confidence is generally too low. In some sense, recognizing this should automatically increase my confidence levels until they stop being too low—but in practice my brain doesn’t work that way. (I repeat: in some sense it should, and that’s the only sense in which saying “I am generally underconfident” is self-contradictory.)
I make a lot of mistakes. That is: if I look at the various things I have from time to time believed to be true, with hindsight it turns out that quite often those beliefs are incorrect. It seems likely that I have a bunch of incorrect current beliefs, but of course I don’t know which ones they are.
(Perhaps I’ve introduced a new inconsistency by saying both “I am generally underconfident” and “I make a lot of mistakes”. As it happens, on the whole I think I haven’t; in any case that’s a red herring.)
Yes, that’s why I said it was a bit self contradictory. The point is, you got to have two confidence levels involved that aren’t consistent with each other one being lower than the other.