The World Is More Uncertain Than You Think: Assessing and Combating Overconfidence Among 2,000 National Security Officials

Abstract: This article analyzes more than 60,000 assessments of uncertainty made by national security officials from more than forty NATO allies and partners. The findings show that national security officials are overwhelmingly overconfident and that their judgments are especially prone to false positives. Despite having strong incentives to make accurate assessments of uncertainty, national security officials share biases that are widespread among the general public. These flaws also appear to be tractable—just two minutes of training significantly improved performance. Altogether, these findings demonstrate how national security bureaucracies can leverage insights from the decision sciences to improve cognitive performance at large scales.