The problem is so persistent that in a 2011 article published in Nature, social scientists Dominic Johnson at the University of Edinburgh and James Fowler at the University of California4 argued that ‘Humans exhibit many psychological biases, but one of the most consistent, powerful, and widespread is overconfidence.’ One reason for this may be the superiority illusion, which suggests that we have a tendency to overestimate our positive qualities and to underestimate our negative traits.
