Study of difference of confidence in decision making in men and women

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the role of gender in overconfidence. Overconfidence is individual’s excessive assessments of his/ her skills, knowledge or judgment. People often have more confidence in the accuracy of their performance. For reasons not yet clear, decisions by both professionals and non-professionals are affected by it. Various factors play a role in this phenomenon. It has been suggested that one of them is sex. In this study, using cluster random sampling,389 students (274 men and 115 women) from universities in Tehran were selected. Each participant responded to two-choice general knowledge questions. After each item, they reported degree of their confidence. Using confidence scores and correct answers, their overconfidence scores were obtained. Finally, theindependent t- test was used for statistical analysis. Based on the t-test performed to compare the mean overconfidence scores difference between men and women,the observed mean difference in bias scores and Brier scores for men and women was not statistically significant (P =0/577, t = 0/558). Results showed that all subjects of the research were overconfident. Between men and women, although men were slightly more confident than women, the difference was not significant.