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The Burden of Expertise

  • June 2015
  • Conference: 20th annual Congress of the European College of Sport Science, ECSS Malmö
Authors:
Erik Hofseth at The Norwegian Olympic Sports Senter
Erik Hofseth
  • The Norwegian Olympic Sports Senter
Tynke Toering at Hanzehogeschool Groningen
Tynke Toering
Geir Jordet at Norwegian School of Sport Sciences (NIH)
Geir Jordet
Andreas Ivarsson at Halmstad University
Andreas Ivarsson
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Abstract

Evolutionary research indicates that underestimating one's capabilities maximizes individual fitness in extremely competitive conditions (Johnson & Fowler, 2011). Further, it has been reported that the top performers tend to underestimate their performance attributes in reference to their peers, which has been labeled as " the burden of expertise " (Dunning, 2005). With respect to athletes' performance, however, the general stand has been that positive self-perceptions about one's capabilities, even if they exceed one's actual capabilities, are adaptive (Bandura, 1997). This study compared youth elite players' and coaches' perceptions of players' skill level, and examined the relationship between this comparison and players' past and future record of playing international matches (N = 338, Mage = 17.8, SD = 1.1). A latent class analysis (Nylund, Asparouhov, & Muthén, 2007) was performed in order to identify subgroups within the population based on the players' and the coaches´ratingscoaches´ratings of the players' skills. The model with three classes was determent to be optimal (entropy = .76, likelihood ratio test p =.02). The classes consisted of 77 (class 1), 90 (class 2), and 100 (class 3) participants. Participants in both class 1 and class 2 indicated higher scores on all skills in comparison to the coaches' scores. The opposite pattern was obtained among the participants in the class 3, where the coaches' scored higher than the participants on all skills. Further, while controlling for age, a multinomial regression analysis (X² (6, N = 266) = 49.39, p ˂ .01) revealed that in comparison to the participants in class 3, both the participants in class 1 (OR = 0.66, p ˂ .05, 95% CI = 0.46, 0.95) and the participants in class 2 (OR = 0.82, p ˂ .05, 95% CI = 0.71, 0.91) had a reduced likelihood of playing international matches the next two years.
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The Burden of Expertise
Erik Hofsetha, Tynke Toeringa, Geir Jordeta, Andreas Ivarssonb
a Department of Coaching and Psychology, Norwegian School of Sport Sciences bSchool of
Social and Health Sciences, Halmstad University
Evolutionary research indicates that underestimating one’s capabilities maximizes individual
fitness in extremely competitive conditions (Johnson & Fowler, 2011). Further, it has been
reported that the top performers tend to underestimate their performance attributes in
reference to their peers, which has been labeled as “the burden of expertise” (Dunning, 2005).
With respect to athletes’ performance, however, the general stand has been that positive self-
perceptions about one’s capabilities, even if they exceed one’s actual capabilities, are adaptive
(Bandura, 1997). This study compared youth elite players’ and coaches’ perceptions of
players’ skill level, and examined the relationship between this comparison and players’ past
and future record of playing international matches (N = 338, Mage = 17.8, SD = 1.1). A latent
class analysis (Nylund, Asparouhov, & Muthén, 2007) was performed in order to identify
subgroups within the population based on the players’ and the coaches´ ratings of the players’
skills. The model with three classes was determent to be optimal (entropy = .76, likelihood
ratio test p =.02). The classes consisted of 77 (class 1), 90 (class 2), and 100 (class 3)
participants. Participants in both class 1 and class 2 indicated higher scores on all skills in
comparison to the coaches’ scores. The opposite pattern was obtained among the participants
in the class 3, where the coaches’ scored higher than the participants on all skills. Further,
while controlling for age, a multinomial regression analysis (X² (6, N = 266) = 49.39, p ˂ .01)
revealed that in comparison to the participants in class 3, both the participants in class 1 (OR
= 0.66, p ˂ .05, 95% CI = 0.46, 0.95) and the participants in class 2 (OR = 0.82, p ˂ .05, 95%
CI = 0.71, 0.91) had a reduced likelihood of playing international matches the next two years.
Thus, the “burden” of expertise seems to be a phenomenon in youth elite soccer, predicting a
high future performance level. Unrealistically positive self-perceptions concerning skills
should therefore be discouraged. Consequently, coaches should provide players with feedback
and experiences that gives them insight into the limitations of their skills.
References
Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. New York, NY: Freeman.
Dunning, D. (2005). Self-insight: Roadblocks and detours on the path to knowing thyself.
New York, NY: Psychology Press.
Johnson, D. D. P., & Fowler, J. H. (2011). The evolution of overconfidence. Nature, 477,
317–320. doi:10.1038/nature10384
Nylund, K. L., Asparouhov, T., & Muthén, B. O. (2007). Latent class analysis and growth
mixture modeling: A monte carlo simulation study. Structural Equation Modeling, 14,
535-569.
Contact: hofsetherik@gmail.com
ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any citations for this publication.
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The Evolution of Overconfidence
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Confidence is an essential ingredient of success in a wide range of domains ranging from job performance and mental health to sports, business and combat. Some authors have suggested that not just confidence but overconfidence--believing you are better than you are in reality--is advantageous because it serves to increase ambition, morale, resolve, persistence or the credibility of bluffing, generating a self-fulfilling prophecy in which exaggerated confidence actually increases the probability of success. However, overconfidence also leads to faulty assessments, unrealistic expectations and hazardous decisions, so it remains a puzzle how such a false belief could evolve or remain stable in a population of competing strategies that include accurate, unbiased beliefs. Here we present an evolutionary model showing that, counterintuitively, overconfidence maximizes individual fitness and populations tend to become overconfident, as long as benefits from contested resources are sufficiently large compared with the cost of competition. In contrast, unbiased strategies are only stable under limited conditions. The fact that overconfident populations are evolutionarily stable in a wide range of environments may help to explain why overconfidence remains prevalent today, even if it contributes to hubris, market bubbles, financial collapses, policy failures, disasters and costly wars.
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