Skip to content
How to ThinkIn the Age of AI
Definitionv1DF-142

Overprecision

the form of overconfidence where individuals believe their estimates are more accurate than they actually are, demonstrated by confidence intervals that are too narrow and fail to capture true values at the stated confidence level

Why This Is a Definition

This definition precisely identifies 'overprecision' as one of three distinct forms of overconfidence, clearly distinguishing it from overestimation and overplacement by focusing specifically on the narrowness of confidence intervals and their failure to contain true values. It establishes the precise semantic boundary within the overconfidence framework.

Source Lessons

Overconfidence is the default calibration error

Your brain does not fail randomly. It fails in a specific, measurable, predictable direction: too much confidence. Across decades of research, in every population tested, the dominant calibration error is overconfidence — believing you know more than you do, that your estimates are more precise than they are, and that your performance exceeds what it actually achieves.

Connections

Back to Concepts