Are You Certain In Your Skills? Self Evaluations and Responses to Ambiguous Feedback

Abstract

The STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) have been historically male dominated, and continue to be so today. The reasons for this are numerous and complex. This study focuses on the role that self-perceptions of ability play in interpreting ambiguous feedback. Participants consisted of 508 psychology and linguistic students recruited from the University of Oregon. Everyone learned about a •·new dimension of human cognitive performance" called Integrational Complexity. Those in an "excel" condition were told that they should do well at IC, and those in an "uncertain" condition were told that their performance ''on IC tasks is more uncertain and variable." Participants completed an "Integrational Complexity Skills Assessment." All participants. including those in the control condition, were then informed that their IC skills were in the average range. They continued to another survey that gauged their feelings towards IC. We hypothesized that participants made to feel uncertain about their skills in IC would have more negative feelings towards the domain than either the control group or the excel group. Participants' scores for the self-perception measure (F(2,438)=3.96, p =0.02) confirmed our hypothesis. We found an effect for gender as well, such that men reported significantly more positive self-perceptions with regards to IC than did women (F(1,439)=34.44,p<0.001). We also found that women felt their scores to be more accurate than did men (F(1,439)= 9.64,p= 0.002).