When Knowledge Knows No Bounds
Self-Perceived Expertise Predicts Claims of Impossible Knowledge
- Stav Atir, Department of Psychology, Cornell University, 211 Uris Hall, Ithaca, NY 14853-7601 E-mail: ssa62{at}cornell.edu
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Author Contributions S. Atir developed the study concept under the supervision of D. Dunning. All authors contributed to the study design. Data collection and analysis were performed by S. Atir. All authors contributed to the interpretation of the data. S. Atir drafted the manuscript, and D. Dunning and E. Rosenzweig provided critical revisions. All authors approved the final version of the manuscript for submission.
Abstract
People overestimate their knowledge, at times claiming knowledge of concepts, events, and people that do not exist and cannot be known, a phenomenon called overclaiming. What underlies assertions of such impossible knowledge? We found that people overclaim to the extent that they perceive their personal expertise favorably. Studies 1a and 1b showed that self-perceived financial knowledge positively predicts claiming knowledge of nonexistent financial concepts, independent of actual knowledge. Study 2 demonstrated that self-perceived knowledge within specific domains (e.g., biology) is associated specifically with overclaiming within those domains. In Study 3, warning participants that some of the concepts they saw were fictitious did not reduce the relationship between self-perceived knowledge and overclaiming, which suggests that this relationship is not driven by impression management. In Study 4, boosting self-perceived expertise in geography prompted assertions of familiarity with nonexistent places, which supports a causal role for self-perceived expertise in claiming impossible knowledge.
Article Notes
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Declaration of Conflicting Interests The authors declared that they had no conflicts of interest with respect to their authorship or the publication of this article.
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Funding The research was supported financially by THRIVE Center Grant IH103, “Cognitive Habits of Intellectual Humility,” funded by the Templeton Foundation (to D. Dunning).
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Open Practices

All data and the materials used in Studies 1 and 4 have been made publicly available via Open Science Framework and can be accessed at https://osf.io/2m8cu. The materials used in Studies 2 and 3 were taken from the Over Claiming Questionnaire (specifically, life sciences, philosophy, books and poems, and historical names and events). These materials have not been posted in an open-access repository so as not to compromise future use of the measure. More information about these materials is available at http://neuron4.psych.ubc.ca/~dpaulhus/research/index.htm. The complete Open Practices Disclosure for this article can be found at http://pss.sagepub.com/content/by/supplemental-data. This article has received the badge for Open Data. More information about the Open Practices badges can be found at https://osf.io/tvyxz/wiki/1.%20View%20the%20Badges/ and http://pss.sagepub.com/content/25/1/3.full.
- Received December 6, 2014.
- Accepted May 2, 2015.
- © The Author(s) 2015












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