Another potential reason for the disparity in social reaction to overconfidence vs underconfidence may be that, for primitive people, overconfidence would likely get one killed immediately when taking on too large a challenge while underconfidence would merely result in being hungry but usually living to find another opportunity later.
In the modern world very few of our challenges are of a nature where failure results in immediate death, but our brains are still wired as though we’re debating the wisdom of leaping onto a mammoth’s back. Being pack animals we are naturally inclined to curb the exuberance of others to avoid incurring fatality rates that would jeopardize the survival of the tribe, but most of us have a mis-calibrated scale due to never having had to take on significant, life-or-death decisions.
Another potential reason for the disparity in social reaction to overconfidence vs underconfidence may be that, for primitive people, overconfidence would likely get one killed immediately when taking on too large a challenge while underconfidence would merely result in being hungry but usually living to find another opportunity later.
In the modern world very few of our challenges are of a nature where failure results in immediate death, but our brains are still wired as though we’re debating the wisdom of leaping onto a mammoth’s back. Being pack animals we are naturally inclined to curb the exuberance of others to avoid incurring fatality rates that would jeopardize the survival of the tribe, but most of us have a mis-calibrated scale due to never having had to take on significant, life-or-death decisions.