Replication Data for Reckoning with Reality: Correcting National Overconfidence in a Rising Power

Does the public in a rising authoritarian power with pervasive propaganda and information control overestimate their country's reputation, power, and influence in the world? Excessive national overconfidence has both domestic and international consequences, but it has rarely been systematically studied. Using two studies conducted during the Covid-19 pandemic and an additional post-pandemic study, I show that the Chinese public widely and significantly overestimates China's global reputation and soft power, even during a national crisis. Critically, informing Chinese citizens of actual international public opinion of China substantially corrects their factual perceptions of the country's global reputation. It also moderately alters their evaluations of China, its governing system, and their expectations for the country's role and success in the world. These effects from simple information interventions are not fleeting, and they indicate that overconfidence can be meaningfully corrected and triumphalism mitigated. The findings carry both theoretical significance and important policy implications.