Clearing the Hurdles: Women Building High-Growth Businesses

CHAPTER 5•WOMEN AND HUMAN CAPITAL 93

resource providers to process information incorrectly and lead to errors

in decisions.

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For example, overconfidence might lead a resource pro-

vider to overestimate the possibility that a favored outcome will occur,

and overestimating one’s knowledge might cause a decision to be based

on incomplete information. There is evidence that investors are signifi-

cantly overconfident in their investment decision making, which tends to

reduce the information they will seek about prospective investment.

Therefore, the decision for resource investment, particularly

money, is based on objective qualities that are colored by subjective

influences of the search for ideal type, expectations for heroic traits,

and cognitive biases. ...