Confidence as a Result of Independent Hypothesis Testing

Abstract

This paper analyzes the main approaches to the problem of confidence in psychology According to the author, despite the accumulated experimental data and a number of models of confidence, a common understanding of this construct does not yet exist. This can be attributed to conflicting research approaches, as well as the methodological complexity of the measurement of this phenomenon. For a better understanding of this phenomenon, the paper provides a brief historical overview of confidence research. The article outlines local and international models of confidence and the main effects associated with confidence in cognitive problem solving, such as overconfidence and underconfidence and the relationship of this construct with speed, accuracy and other response parameters.Over the past few years the author and their colleagues have conducted a number of experimental studies of confidence to find out what happens to the main solution parameters in simple cognitive tasks, including the dynamics of confidence under repeated conditions. The main assumption was that a person would be able to distinguish between correct and incorrect responses and would respond to such distinctions with increased confidence and repeatedly with the correct solution. To test the main hypotheses a number of tasks were selected: recognition tasks, arithmetical equations, perceptual comparisons and a mental spatial-arithmetic problem; no feedback on respondents’ performance was provided. The experimental study has proved the relationship between confidence and the probability of repeating the previous response, which was presumably caused by the after-effects of unconscious selection. Particular attention in the experimental series was paid to the measurement and calibration of confidence in psychology: several methods to measure confidence ratings were used to additionally verify the results obtained.