Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 26, 2026

The Joint Effect of Social Comparison and Social Distance on Evaluation of Intertemporal Choice Outcomes in Event-related Potential Studies
Published on: August 25, 2023
The disutility of the hard-easy effect in choice confidence
1Department of Psychology, Wichita State University, Wichita, Kansas 67260, USA. edgar.merkle@wichita.edu
Abstract:
A common finding in confidence research is the hard-easy effect, in which judges exhibit greater overconfidence for more difficult sets of questions. Many explanations have been advanced for the hard-easy effect, including systematic cognitive mechanisms, experimenter bias, random error, and statistical artifact. In this article, I mathematically derive necessary and sufficient conditions for observing a hard-easy effect, and I relate these conditions to previous explanations for the effect. I conclude that all types of judges exhibit the hard-easy effect in almost all realistic situations. Thus, the effect's presence cannot be used to distinguish between judges or to draw support for specific models of confidence elicitation.
Related Concept Videos
Cognitive Dissonance
Self-Discrepancy Theory
Frustration and Conflict: Avoidance-Avoidance, Double-Approach Avoidance
Self-Discrepancy and Its Effects
Reason and Intuition
Cause and Effect

