Many of us know that feeling of having a little extra swagger when we've got a confident friend or colleague by our side.
Of course, that’s just anecdotal, but now a new study has provided some lab-based evidence to support the idea that confidence really can be contagious.
The researchers at Birkbeck, University of London asked participants to make repeated judgments about the direction of travel of a cloud of dots on a computer screen, and to state how confident they were in their decision.
Then the participants repeated the judgment but with a partner who performed the exact same task and shared their own confidence rating (the partner was actually a computer programme, but the participants thought it was a real person).
Finally, the participants made the same kind of judgment on their own again.
This process was repeated many times so the participants could learn the gist of their partner’s confidence levels over time.
The key finding was that participants who were paired with a more confident partner tended to start expressing more confidence in their own judgments – not only when sharing their ratings with their partners, but also when they were making their judgments in private again, which suggests they weren’t just claiming more confidence for the sake of appearances.
The researchers said this apparent social transmission of confidence could help to explain why certain social groups, such as financial traders, tend to exhibit heightened confidence levels – the bravado can be catching.
An important caveat is that the new study involved confidence in a specific perceptual task, rather than the broader feeling of being more confident.
Also, the transmission of confidence wasn’t measured over the longer term.
Nonetheless, the results jibe with findings from personality science that suggest our own behavioural tendencies can be shaped by the kind of people we mix with.
Some of us seem to be more prone to these influences than others – so whether or not a confident friend gives you that swagger might come down to how much of a social chameleon you are.
This article is an answer to the question (asked by Tom Davis, via email) 'Is confidence contagious?'
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