Doubting one’s doubt: A formula for confidence?
People feel, think, and act differently when doubt rather than confidence is accessible. A traditional perspective on the accessibility of doubt holds that multiple sources of doubt activation should lead to increased levels of uncertainty. In contrast, we find that under some conditions two sequent...
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Published in | Journal of experimental social psychology Vol. 46; no. 2; pp. 350 - 355 |
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Main Authors | , , , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
New York, NY
Elsevier Inc
01.03.2010
Elsevier Academic Press |
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | People feel, think, and act differently when doubt rather than confidence is accessible. A traditional perspective on the accessibility of doubt holds that multiple sources of doubt activation should lead to increased levels of uncertainty. In contrast, we find that under some conditions two sequential sources of doubt activation result in
decreased levels of uncertainty. We suggest that this follows from a meta-cognitive process in which people come to “doubt their doubt.” In Study 1, individuals with chronically accessible uncertainty who were further exposed to an uncertainty manipulation paradoxically reported reduced uncertainty. In Study 2, participants were first primed with doubt or certainty and then exposed to a manipulation associated with either confidence (i.e., head nodding) or doubt (head shaking). Supporting the idea that people can either trust or doubt their own doubts, head nodding (vs. shaking) accentuated (vs. attenuated) the impact of the initial doubt vs. certainty manipulation. These findings advance the literature on meta-cognition, self-doubt, and embodiment, and may have clinical applications. |
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Bibliography: | ObjectType-Article-2 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-1 content type line 23 |
ISSN: | 0022-1031 1096-0465 |
DOI: | 10.1016/j.jesp.2009.10.012 |