In a study published Monday to the journal PLoS ONE, psychologists Jonathan Schulz and Christian Thöni, respectively of Yale University and the University of Lausanne, sought to examine whether a correlation exists between overconfidence and career choice, indicated by the student's chosen field of study. To find out, Schulz and Thöni surveyed 711 first-year students from the University of St. Gallen and the University of Zurich in Switzerland. Subjects were presented with five historical events and were asked to guess the year each occurred. Examples included the reactor accident in Chernobyl and the first flight of the supersonic jet Concorde. The most overconfident students were in the political sciences. On average, they overestimated their rankings by 1.4 places. Students majoring in law, administration, and economics also tended to over place themselves, but nowhere near the degree of political science majors. Students in the humanities significantly underestimated their rankings. http://www.realclearscience.com/jou...tical_science_law_business_and_economics.html So, they've asked students just five history questions. How accurate are the results if they're not based on questions from various fields?
