There were two situations in recent memory where I experienced decision making and performance impacts from varying confidence levels and attitudes. A situation where I had high confidence and relatively high expectations for a positive outcome was when I volunteered to teach one of our monthly leadership seminars for the junior officers and senior enlisted. The topic that was requested was Team Building, and I just so happened to be taking my MSLD course for Developing Teamwork. A few days before the presentation, I created a slide deck and integrated much of my reading materials to cover the highlights, and even was able to provide inputs from a text on introversion (Quiet, by Susan Cain) as a foil to show times when individual work may be desirable. I also had a highly positive attitude about the task, as it was outside of the usual grind of the office and I hadn't had an opportunity to do a brief on a subject I was comfortable with since I had graduated college. To tie in with the Wharton text, I had positive past experiences and didn't feel a high need to exercise any "protection," per se, almost like the example of the individual who wasn't concerned about crime and didn't purchase a deadbolt (Hoch et al, 2001). The end result was a well received briefing, with one of my supervisors commenting that I did in fact exhibit a high level of confidence she didn't usually see, mentioning I might be a good fit for instructor duty at some point. In this circumstance, I was able to select my materials and give the presentation with a strong sense of certainty, because it was subject matter I felt I was able to internalize and understand. Additionally, I generally felt good about sharing what I felt was useful information, and having completed everything I did, I felt a sense of accomplishment.
Not long before that was a situation where although I wanted to succeed, I had low confidence and wanted to get it done and over with. I was interested in making a move away from my desk job and picking up a flying job with the Air Force, which required me to not only get accepted for the training pipeline but also base what's called Initial Flight Screening, where we fly small civilian airplanes. Although billed as a zero hour training course, there's still a strong element of testing one's intrinsic ability to learn quickly and on the Air Force's timetable. Try as I might, not only was I having a rough time with academics, but I was having trouble landing the plane on my own...a common issue of which there's only so much one can do, and something I had challenge doing without being talked through it. My confidence quickly dwindled, further compounded by ongoing issues with airsickness that never afflicted me before. When I got to my last chances, I continued a trend towards being highly risk averse and didn't execute the "slip" maneuvers that I learned a little too late was something that was part of normal business. Generally speaking, I wasn't willing to take a level of acceptable risk, and I also feel I perhaps could have made some different decisions on how much down time or recovery I needed after a day's flying versus forcing further study upon myself, perhaps influenced by the additional stress. Overall, the low confidence let to a high level of anxiety more than anything else, as well as a nominal amount of anger and frustration to see things through to the end, and eventually a sense of resignation that despite all efforts I was unable to meet the prescribed training timetable. In a mirror of Dr. Shiv's ideas on confidence relating to performance, I had lower confidence, and likely lost some investment or motivation in the effort (Shiv, 2011).
In both cases, the correlation between confidence and performance as highlighted by Dr. Shiv played out according to his assessment. Higher confidence leads to higher level of motivation and engagement, which can also translate to gains in efforts, and thus can lead to higher quality decisions or greater chances of success.
Resources
Hoch, S. J., Kunreuther, H. C., & Gunther, R. E. (2001). Wharton on Making Decisions.
Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Shiv, B. (Narrator). (2011). Brain Research at Stanford: Decision Mak [Online video]. Retrieved March 16, 2014
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