People are often more confident than accurate. Past accounts of this overconfidence effect have focused on social-cognitive mechanisms, such as the biasing effects of judgmental heuristics and the faulty integration of relevant information. The current studies tested the idea that overconfidence is also a product of dissonance reduction. Specifically, we argue that overconfidence can result fro...

Previous research has indicated that children display gender-typed musical instrument preferences. Two studies were conducted to determine (a) whether these preferences can be modified by presenting counter-examples (i.e., instruments played by gender-inappropriate musicians) and (b) whether child gender or age (kindergarten vs. 4th grade) influences the efficacy of such interventions. A videot...

The cheetah is capable of incredible feats of maneuverability [1] and these maneuvers generally involve rapid swinging of the animal’s lengthy tail. Very little is understood about the cheetah’s use of its tail and the common view is that it is “heavy” and possibly used as a “counter balance” or as a “rudder”. Ultimately, a deeper understanding of this specialized animal will inspire future hig...

Leading market analysts such as Gartner, Forrester Research and IDC expect again for 2012 an increase of global information technology (IT) spending between 3.7% and 6.9% compared to 2011. This trend emphasises the fact that ensuring the effectiveness and efficiency of IT or IT evaluation is a substantial task of strategic IT management. Weighing costs and benefits is already a real challenge f...