Flexible use of confidence to guide advice requests

Area of Science:

• Cognitive psychology
• Decision-making science
• Behavioral economics

Background:

• Subjective confidence significantly influences decision-making and information-seeking behaviors.
• The relationship between confidence and behavior is often assumed to be fixed, but context may alter this mapping.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate whether the link between confidence and seeking advice is context-dependent.
• To test if knowledge of advisor quality modulates the behavioral use of confidence.

Main Methods:

• Participants made perceptual judgments and chose between re-sampling evidence or seeking advice.
• Advisor reliability was manipulated (known vs. unknown) to assess its impact on confidence-behavior links.
• Behavioral choices (seeking advice vs. re-sampling) were analyzed in relation to subjective confidence levels.

Main Results:

• When advisor reliability was unknown, participants sought advice more with high confidence, learning advisor quality over time.
• When advisor reliability was known, participants sought advice more with low confidence, using it as a self-monitoring signal.
• Confidence served as a flexible tool, adapted to the specific informational context.

Conclusions:

• Confidence is not a fixed predictor of behavior but is flexibly deployed based on situational goals and information.
• Understanding the context-dependent nature of confidence is crucial for explaining human decision-making and learning.
• This research highlights the adaptive and goal-directed use of subjective confidence in real-world scenarios.