WHAT, ME WORRY - AROUSAL, MISATTRIBUTION, AND THE EFFECT OF TEMPORAL DISTANCE ON CONFIDENCE

Confidence has been found to vary with temporal proximity to an upcomi ng task: People's confidence that they will do well tends to diminish as the ''moment of truth'' draws near We propose that this phenomenon stems in part from individuals using their pretask arousal as a cue to their level of confidence. Arousal that is part and parcel of ''geari ng up'' to perform a task may be misattributed to diminished confidenc e. Consistent with this reasoning, participants in two experiments who were encouraged to misattribute their arousal to a neutral source ('' subliminal noise'') expressed greater confidence in their ability than did participants not able to do so-a result that would not be obtaine d if arousal was simply a reflection, and not a cause, of diminished c onfidence.