This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Reprints and Permissions Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Savitsky, K. Articles by Gilovich, T. Search for Related Content PubMed Articles by Savitsky, K. Articles by Gilovich, T. Social Bookmarking                   What's this?

"What, Me Worry?": Arousal, Misattribution, and the Effect of Temporal Distance on Confidence

Williams College

Victoria Husted Medvec

Northwestern University

Ann E. Charlton

Cornell University

Thomas Gilovich

Cornell University, tdgl{at}cornell.edu

Confidence has been found to vary with temporal proximity to an upcoming task: People's confidence that they will do well tends to diminish as the "moment of truth" draws near. We propose that this phenomenon stems in part from individuals using their pretask arousal as a cue to their level of confidence. Arousal that is part and parcel of "gearing up" to perform a task may be misattributed to diminished confidence. Consistent with this reasoning, participants in two experiments who were encouraged to misattribute their arousal to a neutral source ("subliminal noise") expressed greater confidence in their ability than did participants not able to do so-a result that would not be obtained if arousal was simply a reflection, and not a cause, of diminished confidence.

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles:

				J. A. Shepperd, J. Grace, L. J. Cole, and C. Klein Anxiety and Outcome Predictions Pers Soc Psychol Bull, February 1, 2005; 31(2): 267 - 275. [Abstract] [PDF]