Financial decisions about investing and saving for retirement are increasingly complex, requiring financial knowledge and confidence in that knowledge. Few studies have examined whether direct assessments of individuals' confidence are related to the outcomes of their financial decisions. Here, we analyzed data from a national sample recruited through RAND's American Life Panel, an Internet panel study of US adults aged 18–88 years. We examined the relationship of confidence with self‐reported and actual financial decisions, using four different tasks, each performed by overlapping samples of American Life Panel participants. The four tasks were designed by different researchers for different purposes, using different methods to assess confidence. Yet, measures of confidence were correlated across tasks, and results were consistent across methodologies. Confidence and knowledge showed only modest positive correlations. However, even after controlling for actual knowledge, individuals with greater confidence were more likely to report financial planning for retirement and to successfully minimize fees on a hypothetical investment task. Implications for the role of confidence in investment behavior (even if it is unjustified) is discussed. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

中文翻译：

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不适当的信心和退休计划：具有全国样本的四项研究。

有关退休投资和储蓄的财务决策越来越复杂，需要金融知识和对这些知识的信心。很少有研究考察对个人信心的直接评估是否与其财务决策的结果有关。在这里，我们分析了通过兰德美国生活小组（一项针对 18-88 岁美国成年人的互联网小组研究）招募的全国样本数据。我们使用四项不同的任务检查了信心与自我报告和实际财务决策的关系，每项任务都由美国生活小组参与者的重叠样本执行。这四项任务是由不同的研究人员为不同的目的设计的，使用不同的方法来评估信心。然而，信心的衡量标准是跨任务相关的，并且结果在所有方法中都是一致的。信心和知识仅显示出适度的正相关。然而，即使在控制了实际知识之后，更有信心的人更有可能报告退休财务计划，并成功地将假设投资任务的费用降至最低。讨论了信心在投资行为中的作用（即使它是不合理的）的影响。版权所有 © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 讨论了信心在投资行为中的作用（即使它是不合理的）的影响。版权所有 © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 讨论了信心在投资行为中的作用（即使它是不合理的）的影响。版权所有 © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.