In organizations, displayed confidence remains a powerful shortcut. A manager who claims to be “95% certain” will often seem more credible than one who speaks in more modest probabilities. Mauricio Palmeira and Timothy Heath, in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, show that this reflex depends heavily on the audience and the context.
Across seven experimental studies involving several hundred participants, respondents were presented with fictitious advisors, economists, sports analysts, or financial consultants, who made predictions accompanied by different levels of expressed confidence, for example 75% versus 95%. Participants were then asked to assess their expertise or choose which one to hire. A key element of the design was the Cognitive Reflection Test, a short measure made up of three seemingly simple problems that require people to override an intuitive but incorrect answer. The test distinguishes more reflective individuals, who tend to question their first impressions, from less reflective individuals, who are more likely to accept information as presented.
Among less reflective participants, the rule “more confident equals more expert” holds. Among more reflective participants, the effect reverses in uncertain contexts. An advisor expressing 95% to 100% certainty is then seen as less competent than one expressing 70% to 80% confidence. The implicit assumption is straightforward: ignoring uncertainty signals a limited grasp of complexity. By contrast, when the situation is objectively highly predictable, for example when a political party has won the same riding for twenty years, high confidence appears coherent and no longer penalizes the expert.
Another important contribution for workplaces concerns confidence variability. An advisor who adjusts their level of certainty across different issues is perceived as more expert than one who expresses uniform confidence, even if their average confidence is lower. Nuance becomes a signal of discernment. For managers, the takeaway is pragmatic: credibility does not depend on the volume of certainty, but on its calibration and its fit with the context.