HIGHLY CONFIDENT BUT WRONG - GENDER DIFFERENCES AND SIMILARITIES IN CONFIDENCE JUDGMENTS

Although gender differences are fairly consistent when people report t heir general confidence, much less is known about such differences whe n individuals assess the degree of confidence they have in their abili ty to answer any particular test question. The objective of this resea rch was to investigate gender differences in item-specific confidence judgments. Data were collected from three psychology courses containin g 70 men and 181 women. After answering each item on course exams, stu dents indicated their confidence that their answer to that item was co rrect. Results showed that gender differences in confidence are depend ent on the context (whether items were correct or wrong) and on the do main being tested. Moreover, although both men and women were overconf ident, undergraduate men were especially overconfident when incorrect.