Overconfidence, omens and gender heterogeneity: Results from a field experiment Maria De Paola a,b,⇑ , Francesca Gioia a,c , Vincenzo Scoppa a,b a Department of Economics, Statistics and Finance, University of Calabria, Via Ponte Bucci, 87036 Arcavacata di Rende (CS), Italy b Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn, Germany c School of Economics, University of Edinburgh, 30 Buccleuch Place, Edinburgh EH8 9JT, UK article info Article history: Received 8 November 2013 Received in revised form 11 October 2014 Accepted 16 October 2014 Available online 1 November 2014 JEL classification: D0 D83 D03 PsycINFO classification: 2340 2930 Keywords: Expectations Grade Overconfidence Gender differences Emotions Superstition abstract We investigate whether overconfidence is affected by superstitious beliefs and whether the effect is heterogeneous according to gender. With this aim, we run a field experiment involving about 700 Italian students. According to widespread superstitions, some numbers are considered lucky while others are thought of as unlucky. In our experiment, we exploited this by randomly assigning students to numbered seats in their written exam. At the end of the examination, we asked students the grade they expected to get. We find that students tend to be overconfident about their performance at the exam and that their overconfidence is positively affected by being assigned to a lucky number. Interestingly, males and females react differently: females’ overconfidence tends to be negatively affected when assigned to unlucky numbers, while they are not affected by being assigned to lucky numbers; males are not affected by being assigned to unlucky numbers but are more overconfident when assigned to lucky numbers. Ó 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Psychological studies, surveys and laboratory experiments show that overconfidence is a characteristic trait of human beings. They tend to overestimate their ability and to manifest unrealistically positive self-evaluations, to think that they have more control over events than can objectively be true (illusion of control) and to believe that their knowledge is more precise than it really is (miscalibration) (Glaser, Nöth, & Weber, 2004; DellaVigna, 2009). Existing literature features two types of overconfidence: ‘‘absolute overconfidence’’ or ‘‘stand-alone overconfidence’’, a form of self-evaluation in absolute terms (Yates, Lee, Sieck, Choi, & Price, 2002) and ‘‘relative’’ or ‘‘referential’’ overconfi- dence, which requires comparison with others (Alicke, Klotz, Breitenbecher, Yurak, & Vredenburg, 1995; Glaser & Weber, 2007; Grieco & Hogarth, 2009). Examples of absolute overconfidence are the excessive expectations of self-control ability http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.joep.2014.10.005 0167-4870/Ó 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. ⇑ Corresponding author at: Department of Economics, Statistics and Finance, University of Calabria, Via Ponte Bucci, 87036 Arcavacata di Rende (CS), Italy. E-mail addresses: m.depaola@unical.it (M. De Paola), fgioia@unical.it (F. Gioia), v.scoppa@unical.it (V. Scoppa). Journal of Economic Psychology 45 (2014) 237–252 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Economic Psychology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/joep