OVERCONFIDENCE BIAS In general, disputants overestimate the extent to which their beliefs are shared by a third party. For example, when negotiators are asked to estimate the likelihood of prevailing in final-offer arbitration, they are overconfident that the third party will favor their proposal 39 Parties on both sides of the dispute estimate a greater than 50% chance of prevailing Obviously, they cannot both be right. The hostile media bias and the overconfidence bias may appear contradictory. How can people feel the mediator is simultaneously taking the view of the other side and also agreeing with their own position? The apparent inconsistency stems from the nature of the judgment made by negotiators. In a direct test of this question, negotiators' perceptions of mediator behavior were examined in a realistic organizational simulation." Each negotiator simultaneously displayed an egocentric (overconfidence) bias, evaluating his or her behavior as more successful than that of the counterparty. However, when asked about the amount and content of the mediator's attention to disputants, they saw themselves as coming up short. Each party believed that the mediator spent more time talking and listening to the counterparty, allowed more faulty arguments from the counterparty, and showed less resistance to the counterparty's persuasion attempts. Also both sides perceived the mediator as less receptive to their concerns and less active in exploring their interests than those of the counterparty