Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory

People are often overconfident in evaluating the correctness of their knowledge. The present studies investigated the possibility that assessment of confidence is biased by attempts to justify one's chosen answer. These attempts include selectively focusing on evidence supporting the chosen answer and disregarding evidence contradicting it. Experiment 1 presented subjects with two-alternative questions and required them to list reasons for and against each of the alternatives prior to choosing an answer and assessing the probability of its being correct. This procedure produced a marked improvement in the appropriateness of confidence judgments. Experiment 2 simplified the manipulation by asking subjects first to choose an answer and then to list (a) one reason supporting that choice, (b) one reason contradicting it, or (c) one reason supporting and one reason contradicting. Only the listing of contradicting reasons improved the appropriateness of confidence. Correlational analyses of the data of Experiment 1 strongly suggested that the confidence depends on the amount and strength of the evidence supporting the answer chosen.

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