@article{ref1,
title=""A good man always knows his limitations": The role of overconfidence in criminal offending",
journal="Journal of research in crime and delinquency",
year="2013",
author="Loughran, Thomas A. and Paternoster, Raymond and Piquero, Alex R. and Fagan, Jeffrey A.",
volume="50",
number="3",
pages="327-358",
abstract="OBJECTIVES: This study examines the prevalence of overconfidence in the perceived risk of committing crime and whether such overconfidence is related to criminal behavior.   METHODS: Two samples were used--a sample of high school students who committed minor offenses and a sample of serious juvenile offenders most with felony arrests. Overconfidence in risk was estimated as the difference between the perceived risk of arrest for one's self and for a generalized other. The proportion of over- and underconfident persons were estimated in both samples, while pooled and random effects logit models were used to estimate the effect of risk on both self-reported offending and arrest within the sample of serious offenders.   RESULTS: A large proportion of youth were found to be overconfident with respect to their perceived risk, with a higher prevalence in the conventional high school sample. Within the sample of serious juvenile offenders, being overconfident about one's own risk was found to be related to both self-reported offending and arrest, net of a base rate measure of others' risk.   CONCLUSIONS: We outline a theory of the relationship between overconfidence and crime that links overconfidence with a self-attribution bias and biased updating of perceived risk with new information.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="0022-4278",
doi="10.1177/0022427812459649",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0022427812459649"
}