Doubting one’s doubt: A formula for confidence?

People feel, think, and act differently when doubt rather than confidence is accessible. A traditional perspective on the accessibility of doubt holds that multiple sources of doubt activation should lead to increased levels of uncertainty. In contrast, we find that under some conditions two sequential sources of doubt activation result in decreased levels of uncertainty. We suggest that this follows from a metacognitive process in which people come to ‘‘doubt their doubt.” In Study 1, individuals with chronically accessible uncertainty who were further exposed to an uncertainty manipulation paradoxically reported reduced uncertainty. In Study 2, participants were first primed with doubt or certainty and then exposed to a manipulation associated with either confidence (i.e., head nodding) or doubt (head shaking). Supporting the idea that people can either trust or doubt their own doubts, head nodding (vs. shaking) accentuated (vs. attenuated) the impact of the initial doubt vs. certainty manipulation. These findings advance the literature on meta-cognition, self-doubt, and embodiment, and may have clinical applications. 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Doubt can be paralyzing, and often is associatedwith other negative consequences as well. For instance, those high in self-doubt or uncertainty about the causes of events exhibit greater symptoms of depression (see Weary, Tobin, and Edwards (2010), for a review). Social anxiety also is associated with self-doubt (e.g. Oleson, Poehlmann, Yost, Lynch, & Arkin, 2000). Because uncertainty often is an undesirable state of mind, people who feel uncertain spend considerable effort attempting tomanage these feelings. Forexample, selfhandicapping (Berglas & Jones, 1978), procrastination (e.g. Van Eerde, 2000), defensivepessimism(Norem&Cantor, 1986), and intense information processing (Briñol, Petty, & Wheeler, 2006) all can be considered to stem from doubt management efforts (Wichman & Hermann, 2010). Given its many effects, it is unsurprising that uncertainty is of interest in domains of psychology ranging from decision making (Griffin & Tversky, 1992) to self-efficacy (e.g. Bandura, 1997) to attitudes and persuasion (Gross et al., 1995; Tormala & Rucker, 2007). Uncertainty can be conceptualized in a variety of ways. If uncertainty is treated as a perceived trait held by a person, it is considered a primary cognition. An example of this would be: ‘‘I am doubtful.” In this role as a primary cognition, uncertainty operates much as any belief about a trait would (e.g. I am intelligent.) However, in addition to serving as a primary cognition, uncertainty can play an important role as a secondary cognition. A secondary cognition is a cognition about a primary cognition. For example, a person might think: ‘‘I am uncertain about my intelligence.” In this case, uncertainty exerts its influence as a secondary cognition to cause doubt in one’s personal belief of intelligence. In general, secondary cognitions can have considerable impact on how people use their primary cognitions (see Petty, Briñol, Tormala, and Wegener (2007), for a review). Logically, the meta-cognitive meaning of the secondary cognition for the primary cognition will vary, depending on the contents of the respective cognitions (e.g. being uncertain or certain about one’s intelligence). A general framework for understanding many effects of uncertainty and confidence is provided by the self-validation hypothesis (Petty, Briñol, & Tormala, 2002). The self-validation hypothesis holds that uncertainty or confidence has its impact on whatever cognitions are accessible. A general principle of meta-cognition is that uncertainty attenuates the influence of accessible primary cognitions on judgment whereas confidence amplifies their influence (Clarkson, Tomala, & Rucker, 2008; Petty et al., 2007). To date, studies on self-validation have shown that inducing confidence in positive primary cognitions strengthens their impact and thereby produces more positive evaluations than inducing doubt. By the same token, inducing confidence in negative primary cognitions strengthens their impact and produces more negative evaluations than inducing doubt (see Briñol and Petty (2009), for a review). 0022-1031/$ see front matter 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2009.10.012 * Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected] (A.L. Wichman). 1 The terms confidence and certainty as well as doubt and uncertainty are treated as synonyms in the literature (e.g. Gross, Holtz, & Miller, 1995; Tormala & Rucker, 2007), and we use them interchangeably here as well. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 46 (2010) 350–355