This research tests the hypothesis of Yates et al. (1996) that people prefer judgment producers who make extreme confidence judgments. In each of three experiments, col-lege students evaluated two fictional financial advisors who judged the likelihood that each of several stocks would increase in value. One of the advisors (the moderate advi-sor) was reasonably well calibrated and the other (the extreme advisor) was overconfi-dent. In all three experiments, participants tended to prefer the extreme advisor. Experiments 2 and 3 showed that the advisors' confidence influenced participants' per-ception of their knowledge, and Experiment 3 showed that it influenced their perception of the number of categorically correct judgments they made. Both of these variables were, in turn, related to participants' preferences. Experiment 3 also suggested that need for cognition and right-wing authoritarianism are positively related to preference for the extreme advisor. A quantitative model is presented, which captures the basic pattern of results. This model includes the assumption that people use a confidence heuristic; they assume that a more confident advisor makes more categorically correct judgments and is more knowledgeable.
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