Consumers' overconfidence biases in relation to social exclusion

Unlike previous studies of overconfidence bias that have been looking for causes of overconfidence bias in human cognitive error or in the desire to view oneself positively, this study presents the cognitive narrowing resulting from the social exclusion experience as the condition of overconfidence bias. It seeks to examine what are the characteristics of cognitive narrowing, which is one of the strategies for overcoming the negative emotions resulting from social exclusion, and how cognitive errors called overconfidence bias occur due to cognitive narrowing. The present study was performed with 94 college students in Seoul. Participants were randomly assigned to a group who experienced social exclusion and a group who did not experience social exclusion. We analyzed how the degree of bias of overconfidence differs according to the experience of social exclusion by t-test. The degree of overconfidence bias of the group who experienced social exclusion was higher than that of the group who did not experience social exclusion, and the difference was statistically significant. This study extends the concepts of escaping theory and cognitive narrowing to human cognitive bias and confirmed that social exclusion experience increased cognitive narrowing and overconfidence bias. Implications and future research directions were discussed.