Psychology ETDs

Publication Date

Spring 5-19-2021

Abstract

This study sought to determine whether individuals suffering from the Dunning-Kruger effect are prone to misassessing their performance due to underlying personality and cognitive characteristics. To test this hypothesis, we first collected theory-informed measures of cognitive and personality traits. Next, we used three different performance estimate measures to assess the degree to which participants misestimated their abilities across two performance tasks (e.g., English grammar and logical reasoning). We found that some individuals are more prone to misassessing their performance and self-reported general Metacognitive Ability, Openness to Experience from the Big-Five personality Inventory, and an External Locus of Control orientation can play a role in this misestimation. In addition, individuals are most likely to misassess their performance when comparing themselves to others or when evaluating their performance at the item-level than when assessing how many questions they will answer correctly.

Degree Name

Psychology

Level of Degree

Masters

Department Name

Psychology

First Committee Member (Chair)

Dr. Eric Ruthruff

Second Committee Member

Dr. Tania Reynolds

Third Committee Member

Dr. Ann Speed

Language

English

Keywords

Dunning-Kruger effect, Overconfidence bias, Individual Differences, Personality Factors

Document Type

Thesis

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