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The Roles of Overconfidence, Overclaiming, Cognitive Reflection, and Age in Children’s Belief in Myths
by Candice Ma
Faculty Advisor: Jacqueline Woolley, PhD, Graduate Student Mentor: Jenny Nissel
People who are least knowledgeable are most likely to overestimate their own knowledge. Relatedly, those who are most confident in their knowledgeability are most likely to claim knowledge they cannot possibly possess. Those who are low in cognitive reflection, the tendency to think analytically and reflect on one’s own reasoning, often overestimate their performance. Low cognitive reflection is also associated with poor accuracy judgement of scientific ideas and news headlines. Most of the research on cognitive reflection and the lack of insight into one’s own ignorance has been done in adults, and little is known about these effects in children. This study investigated the roles of overconfidence, overclaiming, cognitive reflection, and age in predicting children’s belief in scientific myths. We measured endorsement of scientific animal myths, self-reported knowledge of animals, the tendency to overclaim animal knowledge, and cognitive reflection in children ages 7 to 10 (N = 61). No variables were found to be predictors of myth endorsement; however, secondary analyses revealed that interest in animals had a negative relationship with familiar myth endorsement and that familiarity and parent endorsement of myths were also associated with myth endorsement. These findings suggest that children have higher accuracy in discerning truth from myth if they are interested in that topic, and that children are accepting of information that has already been introduced to them, particularly by a parent, but are generally skeptical of unfamiliar information.