OVERCONFIDENCE AND VOTING DECISIONS IN “THE WEAKEST LINK”

Abstract: This paper uses a natural laboratory of The Weakest Link television show to conduct a test for overconfidence. In The Weakest Link contestants are heterogeneous in their ability to answer general knowledge questions, which determines their rank in an ad hoc group. Contestants frequently assess their relative performance in a competitive group and have an opportunity to vote off any of their counterparts. We calculate expected prizes, necessary for individual voting decisions to constitute the Nash mixed-strategy equilibrium, and compare these prizes with the actual average earnings in the television show. We find that all contestants are miscalibrated: low ranked contestants are overconfident, while high ranked contestants are underconfident