Group Decisions May Suffer If Confidence, Expertise Don’t Match

Group Decisions May Suffer If Confidence, Expertise Don’t Match: New research suggests, that when trying to make a decision with another person, people tend to match their confidence levels — which can backfire if one person in fact has more expertise than the other. University College London (UCL) researchers found that that the degree of stated confidence in one's opinion is infectious when working in a team. However, an individual’s confidence in their opinion implies credibility which may or may not be accurate. The study, published in Nature Human Behaviour, shows that the degree of stated confidence can blur the boundary between well-informed and poorly informed opinion, sometimes to the detriment of group decision-making. 'Making a decision collectively is most effective if the person with the most expertise expresses their opinion with the most confidence. If my opinion is more reliable than yours, then I should also be more confident. 'But it's difficult to express that effectively if you don't know whether the person you're working with is