Hard-easy effect
The tendency to be overconfident on hard tasks and underconfident on easy ones. Our sense of how well we did does not adjust enough to how difficult the task really was.
Some researchers argue that much of this pattern comes from the way confidence and accuracy are measured, so how large the real effect is remains debated.
In everyday life
A student feels good about a brutal calculus exam and scores poorly, then worries about a simple quiz and aces it.
You feel sure you nailed a tough job interview full of technical puzzles, yet you fret over a short, simple phone screen, and the results come back the other way around.
Why your mind does this
To act at all, we need some belief that our choices matter and that we can pull them off. A bit of extra confidence gets us moving, keeps us going after setbacks, and protects our sense of self-worth and our standing in a group.
Its family, in 30 seconds: Confidence to act
How to spot it
Notice whether your gut feeling about a result stays about the same no matter how demanding the task was.
How to counter it
On hard tasks, lower your confidence a notch on purpose, and on easy ones, give yourself more credit.
Same family: Confidence to act
- Overconfidence effect
- Social desirability bias
- Third-person effect
- False consensus effect
- Hard-easy effect
- Lake Wobegon effect
- Dunning-Kruger effect
- Egocentric bias
- Optimism bias
- Forer effect
- Barnum effect
- Self-serving bias
- Actor-observer bias
- Illusion of control
- Illusory superiority
- Fundamental attribution error
- Defensive attribution hypothesis
- Trait ascription bias
- Effort justification
- Risk compensation
- Peltzman effect