title: Naive empiricism and dogmatism in confidence research: a critical examination of the hard-easy effect.
abstract: Two robust phenomena in research on confidence in one's general knowledge are the overconfidence phenomenon and the hard-easy effect. In this article, the authors propose that the hard-easy effect has been interpreted with insufficient attention to the scale-end effects, the linear dependency, and the regression effects in data and that the continued adherence to the idea of a "cognitive overconfidence bias" is mediated by selective attention to particular data sets. A quantitative review of studies with 2-alternative general knowledge items demonstrates that, contrary to widespread belief, there is (a) very little support for a cognitive-processing bias in these data; (b) a difference between representative and selected item samples that is not reducible to the difference in difficulty; and (c) near elimination of the hard-easy effect when there is control for scale-end effects and linear dependency.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Uppsala University, Sweden. peter.juslin@psy.umu.se
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Juslin
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Winman
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Olsson
mesh_terms: D003071:Cognition; D006801:Humans; D011582:Psychological Theory