New research published in Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied This suggests that people tend to overestimate their understanding of political facts. This tendency to overconfidence is actually most common among people who know little about politics or who tend to be conservative. The findings provide evidence that psychological traits, such as a desire for quick and definitive answers, help explain why some voters have trouble accurately judging their political knowledge.
Erica K. Fulton, associate professor of psychology and director of the META Lab at Idaho State University, led a team of scientists to investigate how well people know about their own politics. The research team noticed a gap in the existing scientific literature regarding this particular type of self-assessment. Most previous research on political knowledge has been conducted by political scientists, who often use different analytical techniques than cognitive psychologists.
Scientists wanted to apply the rigorous metrics of cognitive psychology to political knowledge. The researchers explain, “Metacognition is broadly defined as thinking about one’s own cognition. The type we studied is called metacognitive monitoring accuracy, or the extent to which our judgments of what we know match what we actually know.”
More simply, this concept refers to a person’s ability to know exactly when they are right and when they are wrong. “People tend to be overconfident about what they think they know, and this has serious implications in politics, such as when voting for candidates or issues that they don’t understand as much as they think they do,” the researchers said.
“We found no political metacognitive studies conducted by cognitive psychologists, particularly metacognitive researchers, but only by political scientists,” the researchers told PsyPost. “Experimental psychology has very specific metrics to guide our research design, and we wanted to employ them to develop a fuller and more nuanced understanding of political metacognition.”
To explore this topic, the scientists recruited 216 participants between February 2021 and March 2022 through an online platform called Amazon Mechanical Turk. The sample consisted of adults residing in the United States.
To assess political awareness, participants were given a 60-question test that covered basic political figures, government rules, and policy issues. The test is designed to be balanced, with an equal number of questions that may favor liberal and conservative viewpoints. It also includes 20 general knowledge questions that serve as points of comparison.
The researchers measured confidence at two different points during the testing process. First, before taking the test, participants were asked to estimate how well they expected to perform on the test. Then, after answering the multiple-choice questions, they rated their confidence in each specific answer they selected.
The scientists also used an objective questionnaire to measure participants’ political orientation based on their agreement with certain policies, rather than simply asking them to label themselves. In addition, the scientists measured the participants’ cognitive styles, specifically looking at their need for cognitive closure. This term refers to the psychological preference for reaching quick and clear decisions rather than dealing with ambiguity and uncertainty.
People with a high need for cognitive closure generally prefer clear “yes” or “no” answers and dislike gray areas. Gathering all this information allows researchers to examine how political beliefs and thought habits relate to self-perception.
Researchers observed that participants were generally overconfident in their test performance. The gap between what people think they know and what they actually know was largest among those with the lowest test scores.
“We found that people are generally overconfident in their political knowledge, especially those who really don’t know much about politics (a classic Dunning-Kruger effect),” the researchers elaborated. The Dunning-Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which people with limited knowledge in a particular field significantly overestimate their own abilities because they lack the expertise needed to recognize their mistakes.
The data also revealed a link between political leanings, thinking styles, and this overconfidence. “People who are more politically conservative and prefer to make quick, decisive decisions even if they don’t have all the relevant information tend to be the most overconfident,” the researchers observed.
To explain this, scientists point to mental shortcuts, or cues, that people use to judge their memories. “Our analysis suggests that these people may be using the wrong cues to determine whether they know something,” the researchers said. For example, someone may mistakenly rely on a strong political identity as a cue that they know a particular political fact, rather than actually retrieving the correct information from memory.
Although the average participant expressed overconfidence, the data showed a mixed picture. “On average, people exhibited mild to moderate overconfidence in their political knowledge,” the researchers explained. “However, the largest group of participants were either unconfident or well-calibrated, suggesting that only a portion of the population may need to improve their political metacognition.” Well-calibrated means that a person’s confidence level perfectly matches their actual accuracy.
The researchers cautioned against generalizing too broadly from this single study. “Please note that this is just one study and will need to be replicated and extended to draw strong conclusions,” the researchers added.
This analysis also revealed some unexpected trends. “We were surprised to find that political metacognition outperformed general knowledge metacognition, and that distrust was most prevalent among political moderates,” the researchers noted. “While the former was reassuring, the latter suggests that political moderates may not be sufficiently engaged and/or vocal in the political realm.”
The scientists emphasized that their aim was not to criticize any particular group of voters. “We in no way intend to shame anyone or judge anyone. Being metacognitively accurate is not easy, and there are many factors that can bias us,” the researchers said.
They also noted that the findings do not apply universally to all conservatives. “Also, this is not an anti-conservative paper; we emphasize that at high levels of political knowledge, liberals and conservatives had very similar political metacognitive accuracy,” the researchers said.
In fact, the data suggests that actual familiarity with a topic overrides political bias. As the researchers note, “Political metacognitive accuracy is better predicted by political knowledge than political orientation; that is, what you know matters more than whether you are liberal or conservative.”
“We also want to emphasize that when we say ‘political knowledge,’ we mean verifiable political facts, such as who the Speaker of the House is or how many votes it takes to pass a bill,” the researchers revealed. “This means that our results may not be replicated in a more political context because we did not present highly emotional and biased information for participants to make judgments about.”
Scientists cautioned that the study’s findings may not apply to the American population as a whole, as most participants were white, male, and from low-to-moderate incomes. The researchers are already planning to expand the scope of this study to address these variables and explore new contexts.
“We are already reviewing another paper specifically on metacognitive accuracy for misinformation detection, and are writing a third paper based on work that combines aspects of the metacognitive study of political facts with this metacognitive study of misinformation,” the researchers told PsyPost.
“A fourth study is currently in the design stage, investigating the extent to which people are actually unaware of their level of political knowledge, or whether they might perceive additional uncertainty in the appropriate context,” the researchers noted. “Ultimately, we want to focus on interventions that address shortcomings in metacognition about political information that can help some, if not all, of us.”
Scientists acknowledge that political science has laid a strong foundation on this subject. “Some of our results are certainly in line with what political scientists have uncovered, and we appreciate their work on this topic, both for society and in terms of how it informs our research agenda,” the researchers said.
“That said, we believe that through our specific measurement and analytical choices, we have drawn attention to our ability to reveal a more nuanced picture of political metacognition,” the researchers added.
“We encourage everyone to learn about politics and vote in both national and local elections,” the researchers concluded. “Working especially at the local level can have a measurable positive impact on the community.”
The study, “Metacognitive Monitoring of Political Facts: The Impact of Political Orientation, Knowledge, and Cognitive Style,” was authored by Erica K. Fulton, Alisyn E. Agar, Erin Madison, and Jeremy Russell.
