Latest studies have shown a very interesting trend among students regarding their reaction to optimism and overconfidence. It has come to light that female student do better when they are optimistic when compared to male students, who tend to transmute to being overconfident very quickly. It was found that while female students succeed in being positively optimistic, optimism in male students quickly leads to overconfidence, which gets their grades down. The study was conducted by researchers from Ben Gurion University.

The lead researcher, Tamar Iceksin said that the attitude of male students can work against their favor when it concerns optimism. As a result, they fared poorly in academics when compared to female students who seem to handle optimism in a much better manner. In order to prove the facts, researchers considered the one hundred and seventy four undergraduates from the Ben Gurion University. The age of students varied from 20 to 28. 24 was the average age. Among the students, the number of female was more than male. The study was presented during the International Conference of Positive Psychology by Professors Icekson, Ayaya Malach-Pines and Oren Kaplan. These researchers do a lot of work on the effect that positive psychology has on a person. Boys who ranked high in the optimism scale seldom succeed in academics because they tend to get overconfident.

Conversely, female students who ranked high in optimism did very well in their academics because their optimism did not transcend to the level of overconfidence, which brought a reduction in the efficiency of boys. Researchers said that females are usually more conscientious than men. They also said that most of the women suffer from low self esteem and hence, they always have their guard up, which prevents them from being overconfident.

This study has been particularly conducted for college and study environment. A similar study has already been conducted with regard to positive behavior influence in the work place. The present study showed that while male students became overconfident and did not study for the exams, females who are more conscientious studied for the exam and passed with better grades than their male counterparts. The students considered were from studying final year Bachelor of Arts course.

In the present study, the optimism and attitude of students was tested on the basis of a common questionnaires provided to all of them. It contained questions that showed their reaction to various conditions.