Improving self-knowledge: How performance feedback impacts individuals' self-estimates of their cognitive abilities

Individuals assess their cognitive abilities in different situations, however, those self-estimates are rather inaccurate. In two experiments (each N = 200), we investigated whether performance feedback improves the accuracy of self-estimates. Our participants performed cognitive tasks and estimated their abilities beforehand. One half of participants received feedback on their performance, whereas the other half did not. Then, all participants estimated their abilities and performed each task again. Overall, this performance feedback did not impact the accuracy of self-estimates for a variety of cognitive abilities. Only for working memory abilities, we observed the expected interaction: While the groups did not differ in their accuracy before the manipulation, the feedback group showed more accurate self-estimates after receiving feedback than the no feedback group. Surprisingly, despite the feedback group getting more accurate in their self-estimates of working memory abilities, the no feedback group got less accurate. Interestingly, the correlations between performance ratings and performance got higher over time in both groups and for most ability domains, suggesting positive effects of practice on the accuracy of self-estimates. Thus, experience with a task and corresponding self-estimates might foster self-knowledge, rather than simple performance feedback as administered in this study.