[sakoht]

There is a balancing factor. People tend to overestimate their skill and ability when risks are low, but underestimate them when they are high. An average person is pretty sure he/she can walk on a path that is 2' wide without error ....but if it crosses a lava pit, the instinct changes. Suddenly you don't have confidence, unless you are around lava pits all the time.

Then a second complicating factor comes in: most people interpret egoic/social peril like physical peril. For most of human history being ostracized by the community meant death. So we are willing to believe whatever we can get away with in a social context ...but not more. And the winners of a social egoic competition benefit from this. Competitors self-limit.

There is an illusion that confidence confers skill when what is actually happening is that a diminished ego has impeded basic functioning, and artificial self-estimation counteracts that somewhat.

Even if you aren't in the top 10%, you may be able to solve the problem b/c the average person is impeded by an artificially diminished ego.