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People show better understanding of their own knowledge when threatened with large penalties for wrong answers. |
Think of doctors and surgeons making diagnostic decisions. They can't be right all the time, and neither can they be completely certain over their judgments. What becomes important then, is that they have an accurate sense of the reliability of their own knowledge. Psychologists call this "metacognitive accuracy".
Michelle Arnold and her colleagues have performed the first ever test of whether people's insight into the accuracy of their own knowledge is affected by whether they are tested under conditions of high reward for correct answers, or high penalties for wrong answers.
Across two studies, dozens of undergrads attempted to score as many points as possible on a series of multiple-choice general knowledge questions. Crucially, for each question, they were compelled to state their favoured answer, and then whether they wanted to submit it or not for scoring (with points gained for correct answers, and points lost for wrong answers). This two-stage process gave the researchers insight into the students' accuracy of their own knowledge. Withholding answers that would have been incorrect and submitting correct answers would be a sign of high metacognitive accuracy.
The key finding was that the students showed more metacognitive accuracy when they were tested under high punishment conditions in which wrong answers led to a loss of four points, whereas correct answers gained just one point. This is compared to a baseline condition in which correct answers earned one point, and wrong answers lost one point; and compared to a high reward condition in which correct answers earned four points, and wrong answers lost just one point.
Under threat of high punishment, it makes sense that the students were more cautious in the answers they chose to submit. But critically, their submission of correct answers was only moderately reduced, whereas their withholding of wrong answers was significantly increased. In other words, the threat of high penalty for wrong answers had the effect of improving the apparent insight the students had into the accuracy of their own knowledge.
This is a new area of study and the effect needs to be tested in other contexts and over longer time periods. However the real-life implications are exciting. As the researchers concluded: "the positive impact of punishment on strategic regulation may be ripe for widespread application, especially in areas where training effective metacognitive discrimination is vital - such as medicine and business." It will be particularly interesting to see whether repeated testing under high penalty conditions - imagine medical students taking diagnostic exams in this format - leads to lasting, beneficial changes in people's insight into their own knowledge.
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--further reading--
The Mastermind effect - psychologists boost students' knowledge using priming placebo
Unleash the crowd within
When are two heads better than one?
Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.
7 comments:
Or they simply refused to hypothesize and/or guess. In some areas, this might be good, but in others, e.g., creative endeavors, this could be bad...
This type of stuff explains why some people love to control others. You have the perfect people (regulator) and then the subjects. When subject make mistake, then comes the perfect regulators.
I have a few friends that struggle with mental health issues and I hear all the time that they have a constant battle with the drugs. Even though I don't take any, it sounds like our society is trying to rely more heavily on drugs to fix problems instead of using things like counseling and psychotherapy. Both approaches can be helpful; it really depends on the person and what they feel comfortable with and what makes them feel more like themselves. http://www.psych-support.com
And what happened to the Mosers?
Wrong discipline - they are neurophysiologists.
You are quite correct; their scientific field is neurophysiology, but their professional education is psychology
My friend was also suffered from mental problems since 3 years ago. I suggested his parents to give him any kind of Mental Health Therapists care which makes some relief from the mental problem that he faced. Now, he is totally fit and healthy.
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