Aug 28, 2014 03:06 PM EDT By J Baulkman, UniversityHerald Reporter

People who are over-confident tend to be considered more talented than they actually are by others, Upstart Magazine reported.

Researchers from Newcastle University and the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom found that "self-deceived" individuals are more likely to get promotions and reach influential positions in banks and other organizations. And these people are more likely to overestimate other people's abilities and take greater risks, possibly creating problems for their organizations.

In other words, self-deception helps in deceiving others.

"These findings suggest that people don't always regard the most accomplished individual but rather the most self-deceived," study author Vivek Nityananda said in a statement. "We think this supports an evolutionary theory of self-deception. It can be beneficial to have others believe you are better than you are and the best way to do this is to deceive yourself -- which might be what we have evolved to do."

For the study, the research team asked 72 students to rate their own ability and the ability of their peers after the first day of their course. Of those, 32 students (about 45 percent) were under confident in their ability as compared to their final mark, 29 students (40 percent) were overconfident and 11 students (15 percent) were accurate in their assessments of their own ability.

They found a positive correlation between the grades students predicted for themselves and the grades others predicted for them. In other words, students who predicted higher grades for themselves were predicted to have higher grades by others, irrespective of their actual final score. The same applied to those who were under confident.

The task was repeated after six weeks of the course when the students knew each other better and the findings remained the same. Those who were over confident were over rated by others.

"This can cause problems as over confident people may also be more likely to take risks. So if too many people overrate themselves and deceive others about their abilities within organizations then this could lead to disastrous consequences such as airplane crashes or financial collapses," Nityananda said.

The findings were recently published in the journal PLOS ONE.

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