Self-confidence/overconfidence is always regarded as one of the most important self-related concepts in psychological and behavioral economics studies. From exogenous perspective, overconfidence has been treated as investors' and entrepreneurs' inner characteristics to analyze their asset market trading activities and firm development strategies. From endogenous perspective, overconfidence is determined by individual's demand of self-encouragement and motivation, but few articles provide theoretical or empirical support to such correlation analysis. Whether individuals' past experiences can be recognized as significant factors in determining or adjusting their confidence level, and what kind of influencing degree could be achieved, have always been controversial topics, especi...[ Read more ]

Self-confidence/overconfidence is always regarded as one of the most important self-related concepts in psychological and behavioral economics studies. From exogenous perspective, overconfidence has been treated as investors' and entrepreneurs' inner characteristics to analyze their asset market trading activities and firm development strategies. From endogenous perspective, overconfidence is determined by individual's demand of self-encouragement and motivation, but few articles provide theoretical or empirical support to such correlation analysis. Whether individuals' past experiences can be recognized as significant factors in determining or adjusting their confidence level, and what kind of influencing degree could be achieved, have always been controversial topics, especially if researchers implement different self-confidence measurements.

This study is aimed at empirically supporting stability explanation, which illustrates individual dynamic movement as a possible contributor of their self-confidence. 3186 cross-sectional samples were collected from an online survey conducted on a WeChat Platform. Three categories of independent variables are included in the survey: (1) Respondents demographic information; (2) Respondents historical experiences which reflect their past life stability; (3) Respondents expectations about their future dynamic movements. Besides, a cognitive-based test was provided to participants. Their absolute as well as relative confidence judgments on their test performance are recorded. Both binary regression and ordinal logistic regression have been applied to evaluate the effect of the above three groups of independent variables on individual absolute and relative self-confidence as well as overconfidence. Regression results prove a negative relationship between high stability level and high absolute self-confidence while cannot prove such correlation between stability and relative self-confidence.

Keywords: self-confidence, overconfidence, stability, migration