Juslin et al. (2000)

Naive empiricism and dogmatism in confidence research: A critical examination of the hard–easy effect.

Psychological Review, 107(2), 384-396

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Abstract

Two robust phenomena in research on confidence in one's general knowledge are the overconfidence phenomenon and the hard-easy effect. In this article, the authors propose that the hard-easy effect has been interpreted with insufficient attention to the scale-end effects, the linear dependency, and the regression effects in data and that the continued adherence to the idea of a "cognitive overconfidence bias" is mediated by selective attention to particular data sets. A quantitative review of studies with 2-alternative general knowledge items demonstrates that, contrary to widespread belief, there is (a) very little support for a cognitive-processing bias in these data; (b) a difference between representative and selected item samples that is not reducible to the difference in difficulty; and (c) near elimination of the hard-easy effect when there is control for scale-end effects and linear dependency. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)

Reference

Juslin, P., Winman, A., & Olsson, H. (2000). Naive empiricism and dogmatism in confidence research: A critical examination of the hard–easy effect. Psychological review, 107(2), 384.

What Rests on This

1 mechanism cites this source. Each finding below is quoted as it appears on that mechanism's own page.

Confidence Calibration Metacognition

Measured in humans

The standard paradigm asks general-knowledge questions, often with two alternatives, followed by a confidence rating; a quantitative review of such studies found that the classic overconfidence and hard-easy effects largely disappear when items are sampled representatively and scale-end and regression artifacts are controlled