Cultural influences on confidence: Country and gender

The objective of the present investigation was to extend research on metame mory and confidence calibration and discrimination to other countries using items from actual course examinations. The authors investigated gender dif ferences in confidence judgments of 551 postsecondary students from 25 univ ersity courses in 5 countries: Israel the Netherlands, Palestine, Taiwan, a nd the United States. Because important distinctions between men and women and among various countries might be hidden by examining only overall confi dence, the authors analyzed students' confidence both when they were correc t on each exam item and when they were incorrect Large and significant diff erences were found in overall confidence, confidence when correct, and conf idence when wrong, associated primarily with country and culture. In contra st, gender differences tended to be surprisingly small when viewed within c ountries.