Unskilled and don't want to be aware of it: The effect of self-relevance on the unskilled and unaware phenomenon

Young Hoon Kim; Chi Yue Chiu; Jessica Bregant

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0130309

Unskilled and don't want to be aware of it: The effect of self-relevance on the unskilled and unaware phenomenon

Young Hoon Kim, Chi Yue Chiu, Jessica Bregant

Department of Psychology

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

10 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Previous research found that poor performers tend to overestimate how well their performance compares to others'. This unskilled and unaware effect has been attributed to poor performers' lack of metacognitive ability to realize their ineptitude. We contend that the unskilled are motivated to ignore (be unaware of) their poor performance so that they can feel better about themselves. We tested this idea in an experiment in which we manipulated the perceived self-relevancy of the task to men and women after they had completed a visual pun task and before they estimated their performance on the task. As predicted, the unskilled and unaware effect was attenuated when the task was perceived to have low self-relevance.

Original language	English
Article number	e0130309
Journal	PloS one
Volume	10
Issue number	6
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0130309
Publication status	Published - 2015 Jun 12

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 Kim et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology(all)
Agricultural and Biological Sciences(all)
General

Access to Document

10.1371/journal.pone.0130309

Cite this

@article{321ce6b784fb4bd980a974cef9a19dd2,

title = "Unskilled and don't want to be aware of it: The effect of self-relevance on the unskilled and unaware phenomenon",

abstract = "Previous research found that poor performers tend to overestimate how well their performance compares to others'. This unskilled and unaware effect has been attributed to poor performers' lack of metacognitive ability to realize their ineptitude. We contend that the unskilled are motivated to ignore (be unaware of) their poor performance so that they can feel better about themselves. We tested this idea in an experiment in which we manipulated the perceived self-relevancy of the task to men and women after they had completed a visual pun task and before they estimated their performance on the task. As predicted, the unskilled and unaware effect was attenuated when the task was perceived to have low self-relevance.",

author = "Kim, {Young Hoon} and Chiu, {Chi Yue} and Jessica Bregant",

note = "Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2015 Kim et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.",

year = "2015",

month = jun,

day = "12",

doi = "10.1371/journal.pone.0130309",

language = "English",

volume = "10",

journal = "PLoS One",

issn = "1932-6203",

publisher = "Public Library of Science",

number = "6",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - Unskilled and don't want to be aware of it

T2 - The effect of self-relevance on the unskilled and unaware phenomenon

AU - Kim, Young Hoon

AU - Chiu, Chi Yue

AU - Bregant, Jessica

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2015 Kim et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

PY - 2015/6/12

Y1 - 2015/6/12

N2 - Previous research found that poor performers tend to overestimate how well their performance compares to others'. This unskilled and unaware effect has been attributed to poor performers' lack of metacognitive ability to realize their ineptitude. We contend that the unskilled are motivated to ignore (be unaware of) their poor performance so that they can feel better about themselves. We tested this idea in an experiment in which we manipulated the perceived self-relevancy of the task to men and women after they had completed a visual pun task and before they estimated their performance on the task. As predicted, the unskilled and unaware effect was attenuated when the task was perceived to have low self-relevance.

AB - Previous research found that poor performers tend to overestimate how well their performance compares to others'. This unskilled and unaware effect has been attributed to poor performers' lack of metacognitive ability to realize their ineptitude. We contend that the unskilled are motivated to ignore (be unaware of) their poor performance so that they can feel better about themselves. We tested this idea in an experiment in which we manipulated the perceived self-relevancy of the task to men and women after they had completed a visual pun task and before they estimated their performance on the task. As predicted, the unskilled and unaware effect was attenuated when the task was perceived to have low self-relevance.

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84936100546&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84936100546&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0130309

DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0130309

M3 - Article

C2 - 26070150

AN - SCOPUS:84936100546

SN - 1932-6203

VL - 10

JO - PLoS One

JF - PLoS One

IS - 6

M1 - e0130309

ER -

Unskilled and don't want to be aware of it: The effect of self-relevance on the unskilled and unaware phenomenon

Abstract

Bibliographical note

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

Access to Document

Other files and links

Fingerprint

Cite this