In literature overconfidence has been blamed for economic bubbles and crises as well as for
international conflicts and wars. While education has already been shown to impact one's level
of overconfidence previous research focused on the length and profoundness of education. This
study in contrast examines the connection between overconfidence and the field in which a
person has been educated. The issues covered are therefore how education and mind set are
related why a differentiation between quantitative and qualitative education makes sense in
this context and how different mind-sets influence an individual's proneness to
overconfidence. Drawing on the dual process concept of reasoning from psychology it is argued
that the focus of one's education may have an influence on individual levels of overconfidence
through distinct ways of reasoning that are acquired and practiced during higher education. As
support for this theory data on the overconfidence of CEOs of the largest German companies is
used and experiments for future research on this topic are suggested.
