TY - JOUR

T1 - Overclaiming is not related to dark triad personality traits or stated and revealed risk preferences

AU - Keller, Lucas

AU - Bieleke, Maik

AU - Koppe, Kim-Marie

AU - Gollwitzer, Peter M.

N1 - K & PMG: Project 441551024 'Updating Risk' by German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft; DFG): https://www.dfg. de/ The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Publisher Copyright: © 2021 Keller et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

PY - 2021/8/2

Y1 - 2021/8/2

N2 - The tendency to be overly confident in one’s future and skills has long been studied. More recently, a correlate of this overconfidence, the tendency to overclaim knowledge, has been in the focus of research. Its antecedents and downstream behavioral consequences are still in question. In a sample of undergraduate students (N = 168), we tested whether a set of characteristics of the person (e.g., age, gender) and personality traits (i.e., the Dark Triad) is related to overclaiming knowledge. Moreover, we investigated whether overclaiming, in turn, predicts risk preferences. To this end, we asked individuals to rate their confidence in solving a set of different math problems and their familiarity with a set of math concepts. Some of these concepts were nonexistent, thereby allowing participants to overclaim knowledge. Participants then stated their general risk preference and performed three tasks revealing their general, financial, and social risk preferences. We demonstrated the hypothesized relationship between overclaiming and confidence. Furthermore, we observed that the assessed characteristics of the person were not correlated with overclaiming. If anything, height and digit ratio, a phenomenological correlate of hormonal differences during development, tended to be associated with overclaiming. Surprisingly, overclaiming was not at all related to risk preferences or personality traits. This set of results shows the need for relevant theoretical and methodological refinements.

AB - The tendency to be overly confident in one’s future and skills has long been studied. More recently, a correlate of this overconfidence, the tendency to overclaim knowledge, has been in the focus of research. Its antecedents and downstream behavioral consequences are still in question. In a sample of undergraduate students (N = 168), we tested whether a set of characteristics of the person (e.g., age, gender) and personality traits (i.e., the Dark Triad) is related to overclaiming knowledge. Moreover, we investigated whether overclaiming, in turn, predicts risk preferences. To this end, we asked individuals to rate their confidence in solving a set of different math problems and their familiarity with a set of math concepts. Some of these concepts were nonexistent, thereby allowing participants to overclaim knowledge. Participants then stated their general risk preference and performed three tasks revealing their general, financial, and social risk preferences. We demonstrated the hypothesized relationship between overclaiming and confidence. Furthermore, we observed that the assessed characteristics of the person were not correlated with overclaiming. If anything, height and digit ratio, a phenomenological correlate of hormonal differences during development, tended to be associated with overclaiming. Surprisingly, overclaiming was not at all related to risk preferences or personality traits. This set of results shows the need for relevant theoretical and methodological refinements.

KW - Psychology

KW - Game theory

KW - Personality traits

KW - Medical risk factors

KW - Finance

KW - Payment

KW - Psychometrics

KW - Questionaires

KW - Research assessment

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85111733508&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/b47a7fa4-b82c-35d7-9ef1-ac6fdb51c85d/

U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0255207

DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0255207

M3 - Journal articles

C2 - 34339425

VL - 16

JO - PLoS ONE

JF - PLoS ONE

SN - 1932-6203

IS - 8

M1 - e0255207

ER -