Knowing-it-all but still learning: Perceptions of one's own knowledge and belief revision

Sara Hagá, Kristina R. Olson

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

4 Scopus citations

Abstract

Lay theories suggest that people who are overconfident in their knowledge are less likely to revise that knowledge when someone else offers an alternative belief. Similarly, one might assume that people who are willing to revise their beliefs might not be very confident in their knowledge to begin with. Two studies with children ages 4-11 years old and college students call these lay theories into question. We found that young children were simultaneously more overconfident in their knowledge (e.g., believing they knew what chartreuse meant) and more likely to revise their initial beliefs (e.g., choosing another color after seeing a peer choose a different color) than older children and adults. These results bridge the metacognitive and epistemic trust literatures, which have largely progressed independently from each other. We discuss the potential causes and functions of the dissociation between the confidence with which beliefs are held and the revision of those beliefs across development.

Original languageAmerican English
Pages (from-to)2319-2332
Number of pages14
JournalDevelopmental psychology
Volume53
Issue number12
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 2017
Externally publishedYes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Demography
  • Developmental and Educational Psychology
  • Life-span and Life-course Studies

Keywords

  • Arrogance
  • Belief revision
  • Epistemic trust
  • Metacognition
  • Overconfidence

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