The Problem of Connecting Overconfidence With Optimism

Optimism is the opposite of pessimism, and the upsides and downsides of each are very different. Healthy optimism is associated with superior physical and mental health outcomes and stronger and more effective coping mechanisms. Meanwhile, pessimism is linked to anxiety, depression, alcohol abuse, elevated risk of suicidal ideation, suicidal behavior, other mood disorders, and a lack of resilience to adversity.

Knowing that, if it has long been well-established that members of a certain profession, as a group, tend to suffer from pessimism and its negative impact at far greater rates than the overall public or in any other profession, does it make sense not to question the belief that high levels of overconfidence among graduate students in training to join that profession reflects optimism on their part and that they will enjoy the benefits associated therewith? Unfortunately, that is not what happens when unchecked biases play a role in people's interpretation of the data.

An article titled Optimistic Overconfidence: A Study of Law Student Academic Predictions was published in the Spring 2023 edition of the University of Illinois Law Review based upon studies of first-year law students’ overconfidence in their predictions of how they would perform relative to their classmates.¹ Approximately 95% of the student believed that they would finish in at least the top half of the class. The article states in part as follows:

“Optimism ‘serve[s] a wide-variety of cognitive, affective and social functions’ and is generally associated with wellness and life satisfaction, including among law students… Some good news is that although optimism might lead to disappointed expectations, optimism is also associated with more effective coping mechanisms. These mechanisms and students’ psychological immune systems will help moderate disappointment.”

Of course, that seems to be “good news,” assuming it is an accurate interpretation of the data. Is it, though?

As recently as 2016, a survey of 3,300 law students from 15 law schools found that 25% of law students are at risk for alcoholism; 17% suffer from depression; 37% report mild to severe anxiety; and 6% report having suicidal thoughts in the last year.²

That reality fails to align with the “good news” interpreted from law-student overconfidence about how they will perform relative to their classmates. In all fairness, it could be that such overconfidence among first-year law students is a relatively recent development; yet, that same article referenced other studies finding similar rates of such overconfidence among law students going back over 30 years.

It could be that the troubling findings from the 2016 survey of law students represent an anomaly or are specific to the 15 law schools studied. Unfortunately, though, a survey that same year of more than 13,000 practicing lawyers reflected similar statistics.³ Moreover, subsequent surveys and studies reflect that, if anything, the nature and extent of mental health and addiction issues among lawyers have worsened since then, including suicidal ideation.⁴ According to Martin Seligman of the University of Pennsylvania, a leading scholar in the field of positive psychology, attorneys have a “natural tendency for pessimism,” which leads to such negative outcomes.⁵

Irrespective of all of this longstanding and consistent information pertaining to law students, lawyers, and judges, and the fact that it is a very serious problem in need of effective solutions, the authors of Optimistic Overconfidence: A Study of Law Student Academic Predictions interpreted the data in a manner which reflected that the problem has likely been solved for the current batch of law students, most of whom will become future lawyers.

Other possible explanations for how they obviously misinterpreted the data could be their lack of understanding that there are different types of overconfidence, the type of overconfidence involved, or the lack of understanding that "overconfidence can coexist with pessimism."^{6, 7} Unfortunately, considering the following information from the article, those are not viable explanations:

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“In addition, the tendency for people to see themselves as better-than-average is a bias at the group level, and not all students will be overconfident or have the same goals. There is clear overconfidence: 95% of students predicted their grades would be above the median…. This study was conducted at a single law school and explored just one type of optimistic overconfidence.”

There are different types of overconfidence and the authors are correct that the overconfidence involved is that which is known as “better-than-average effect,” “overplacement,” or “superiority bias.” Over 15 years ago, it was found that "the three different types of overconfidence are conceptually and empirically distinct.”⁸

Superiority bias involves an inflated sense of self-regard and a negative bias or pessimism toward others, in comparison.⁹ There is nothing wrong with having high self-regard, unless it is artificially high, meaning not based in reality.

“[I]ndividuals with healthy self-regard know their strengths and weaknesses and feel good about themselves, they have no trouble openly and appropriately acknowledging when they have made mistakes, are wrong, or don’t know all the answers…. You want to like and think highly of yourself, but what’s really important is to know the pluses and minuses involved…. [B]eing aware of your limitation and knowing how you will deal with them … requires a degree of self-awareness.¹⁰

Self-awareness is the foundation of emotional intelligence and the mechanism through which human beings calibrate their ethical and moral compasses.

For what it’s worth, lawyers, as a group, score lowest in self-awareness and other-awareness than in any of the other emotional intelligence competencies.¹¹

There is no “good news” stemming from this study. The only reason there is any “good news” from it is that the authors conflated artificially high self-regard with optimism. Law students, lawyers, and judges, as a group, can have serious problems because of weak and unhealthy coping skills, among other things. Misinterpreting the data is not helpful—quite the contrary.