On Overconfidence
Aristotle could have avoided the mistake of thinking that women have fewer teeth than men, by the simple device of asking Mrs. Aristotle to keep her mouth open while he counted.
- An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish from Unpopular Essays
by Bertrand Russell
We are all guilty of this basic interpersonal faux pas – we play the part of the know-it-all because, in most cases, it works.
In every walk of life – and in the information technology sector especially – personalities and careers are built around competence and knowledge. Many strive to be the go-to person or the lynch-pin of the organization: a cushy salary and job security are the obvious rewards.
Overconfidence kicks in when an individual assumes his or her abilities or knowledge in one specialized task will carry over into others; in the past week I have seen a handful of patently-incorrect statements of fact (all of them easily debunked) made by well-intentioned individuals when answering the questions of novices in technical forums.
While there should be no competition in the context of answering a simple technical question, some Reptilian-complex self-preservation response must be kicking in and triggering the default response – overconfidence (often coupled with a competitive attitude).
The tendency toward competitive action arises from a lack of understanding – particularly in the context of a technical forum: to make inaccurate assertions is damaging to the knowledge and growth of the individual asking the question and the reputation of the individual answering the question. So why do it?
