When feeling skillful impairs coordination in a lottery selection task.
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Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 23799001.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0065092 and PMC identifier 3683036.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Choosing a major field of study to secure a good job after graduation is a tacit coordination problem that requires considering others' choices. We examine how feeling skillful, either induced (Experiment 1) or measured (Experiment 2), affects coordination in this type of task. In both experiments participants chose between two lotteries, one offering a larger prize than the other. Participants' entry into the chosen lottery was either related or unrelated to their skill, with the final prize allocated randomly to one of the entrants in each lottery. Importantly, across conditions skill was irrelevant to choosing between lotteries. Notwithstanding, when skill was related to determining lottery entrants, participants who felt highly skillful chose the high prize lottery excessively. Results further suggest that this stems from high confidence in self skill, rather than incorrect expectations regarding others.
Medical subject headings
- Career Choice
- Gambling
- Self Concept