ERIC Number: EJ1161871
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2017-Dec
Pages: 14
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0012-1649
EISSN: N/A
Knowing-It-All but Still Learning: Perceptions of One's Own Knowledge and Belief Revision
Hagá, Sara; Olson, Kristina R.
Developmental Psychology, v53 n12 p2319-2332 Dec 2017
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.
Descriptors: Epistemology, Beliefs, Self Concept, Attitude Change, Metacognition, Young Children, Elementary School Students, Undergraduate Students, Statistical Analysis, Accuracy, Trust (Psychology), Hypothesis Testing, Familiarity
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Washington
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A