Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Experiment Videos

Cognitive optimism: self-deception or memory-based processing heuristics?

J Metcalfe1

  • 1Department of Psychology, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA. Metcalfe@psych.columbia.edu

Personality and Social Psychology Review : an Official Journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc
|January 14, 2005
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Related Concept Videos

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

Evidence for the Collective Nature of Radial Flow in Pb+Pb Collisions with the ATLAS Detector.

Physical review letters·2026
Same author

Evidence for the Dimuon Decay of the Higgs Boson in pp Collisions with the ATLAS Detector.

Physical review letters·2025
Same author

Developing a Standardised National Model of Care for Treatment of Peanut Allergy in Infants: The ADAPT Peanut Oral Immunotherapy Program.

Clinical and experimental allergy : journal of the British Society for Allergy and Clinical Immunology·2025
Same author

Evidence for Longitudinally Polarized W Bosons in the Electroweak Production of Same-Sign W Boson Pairs in Association with Two Jets in pp Collisions at sqrt[s]=13  TeV with the ATLAS Detector.

Physical review letters·2025
Same author

Observation of tt[over ¯] Production in Pb+Pb Collisions at sqrt[s_{NN}]=5.02  TeV with the ATLAS Detector.

Physical review letters·2025
Same author

Search for Dark Matter Produced in Association with a Dark Higgs Boson in the bb[over ¯] Final State Using pp Collisions at sqrt[s]=13  TeV with the ATLAS Detector.

Physical review letters·2025
Same journal

Speaking the Public's Love Language: How Engaging with Lay Theories Can Build a Rigorous and Resonant Science of Relationships.

Personality and social psychology review : an official journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc·2026
Same journal

Masculinity Threat in Heterosexual Men: A Comprehensive Meta-Analysis of Experimental Research with Recommendations for Future Theory Building and Research Practice.

Personality and social psychology review : an official journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc·2026
Same journal

Socially Minded Intelligence: How Individuals, Groups, and Artificial Intelligence Can Make Each Other Smarter (or Not).

Personality and social psychology review : an official journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc·2026
Same journal

Intelligent Systems, Vulnerable Minds: A Framework for Radicalization to Violence in the Age of AI.

Personality and social psychology review : an official journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc·2026
Same journal

Valence Asymmetry in Cognition-A Formal Account.

Personality and social psychology review : an official journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc·2026
Same journal

The Game of Self: Identity and Experience as Active Inference.

Personality and social psychology review : an official journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc·2026
See all related articles

People often overestimate their cognitive performance due to cognitive biases, not just wishful thinking. This overconfidence can hinder problem-solving and learning by stopping efforts prematurely.

Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Behavioral Economics
  • Decision Science

Background:

  • Overestimation of personal performance is common across various cognitive tasks.
  • This overconfidence extends to judgments of past, present, and future capabilities.
  • Existing research often attributes optimistic bias to self-deception or wishful thinking.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the cognitive mechanisms underlying overestimation of performance.
  • To differentiate between self-deception and cognitive processing in optimistic bias.
  • To explore the consequences of overconfidence in cognitive domains.

Main Methods:

  • Documenting situations where individuals exhibit overconfidence in cognitive tasks.
  • Analyzing the cognitive system's information processing and judgment heuristics.

Related Experiment Videos

  • Examining the relationship between performance expectations and actual outcomes.

    • Main Results:

    • Optimistic bias in cognitive tasks is not solely due to self-deception.
    • Cognitive heuristics and task-specific information processing contribute to inflated self-assessments.
    • Overconfidence leads to premature cessation of effort in problem-solving, memory retrieval, and learning.

    Conclusions:

    • Cognitive processes, not just emotional factors, drive overestimation of performance.
    • Overconfidence in cognitive abilities can negatively impact learning and task completion.
    • Understanding these biases is crucial for improving cognitive efficiency and metacognition.