One reason we're overconfident is we remember the hits and forget the misses--we often remember the times we're successful, and forget the times we fail. It's a bit more complicated, however, because sometimes our failures are our most vivid memories. It turns out that even when we remember our failure, we interpret them in a way that still bolsters our belief. Eileen Langer, a Harvard psychologist, calls it the "Heads I win, tails its chance" phenomenon. As we saw with gamblers' behavior, if we're successful, we think the positive outcome was caused by our knowledge and ability. If we're unsuccessful, we think the negative outcome was caused by something we had no control over. As a result, we reinterpret our failures to be consistent with an overall positive belief in our abilities (p 194)
The line that resonates with me most was "It's a bit more complicated, however, because sometimes our failures are our most vivid memories," but Kida doesn't cite any studies about that aspect.
I understand the phenomenon of attributing success to personal skill, and failure to an outside source. However, aren't there some individuals who consistently believe they will fail and consider all their past to be a completely failure? Does this have something to do with perpetual optimists and pessimists? Just as those overconfident shouldn't believe everything they think, neither should the underconfident or those with low self-esteem do the same. Maybe this paragraph is ok, because it's in the "Overconfidence" section of the "Framing and Other Decision Snags" chapter. Perhaps a corresponding section on "Underconfidence" would be a beneficial addition.
The Langer study Kida refers to is "Heads I Win, Tails It's Chance: The Illusion of Control as a Function of the Sequence of Outcomes in a Purely Chance Task," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 32 (1975): 951.
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