Chapter 1. Regression: What Makes You Think You’re So Smart?

1.1 Regression: What Makes You Think You’re So Smart?

Confidence is a funny thing. Some people seem to carry it naturally, whereas others struggle to find it. But where does confidence come from? And is it earned?

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Question 1.1

A study examined whether certain attitudes about intelligence increased the likelihood that people would be overconfident about their abilities (Ehrlinger, Mitchum, & Dweck, 2016). To determine their attitudes about intelligence, participants rated a series of statements on a scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree). The statements included “You have a certain amount of intelligence, and you can’t really do much to change it” and “You can always substantially change how intelligent you are” (p. 95). Participants who tend to endorse statements like the first one are more likely to believe that intelligence is an innate, unchangeable quality. Participants who tend to endorse statements like the second one are more likely to see intelligence as something that can be changed.

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1.2

Ehrlinger and her colleagues (2016) hypothesized that individuals who believed that intelligence was an innate, unchangeable quality would be more likely to overestimate how well they performed in comparison to others. The researchers also thought that people who viewed intelligence as changeable would evaluate themselves more accurately.

The study had two phases. In the first phase, participants completed a measure of their theories of intelligence (Dweck, 1999)—the scale from which you saw two statements on the previous screen. Lower scores on this scale indicate the participant believes intelligence is highly stable, whereas higher scores indicate the participant believes intelligence is changeable. Several days later, the researchers put the confidence of participants to the test: Participants took a moderately difficult 10-item test on antonyms. Afterward, they indicated how well they thought they did on the antonyms test relative to other test takers by selecting a percentile score between 0 ( which indicated “worse than all other students”) and 99 (which indicated “better than all others”) (Ehrlinger et al., 2016, p. 96).

The researchers hypothesized that people who view intelligence as mostly stable would be more likely to overestimate their performance than those who view intelligence as changeable.

1.3

The researchers hypothesized that people who view intelligence as highly stable will be more likely to overestimate their performance than those who view intelligence as changeable.

1.4

1.5

1.6

Recall that the researchers hypothesized that people who view intelligence as highly stable will be more likely to overestimate their performance than will those who view intelligence as changeable. Also, recall that lower scores on the theories of intelligence scale indicate that participants think intelligence is highly stable, whereas higher scores on that scale indicate that participants think intelligence is highly changeable.

1.7

Previously, we saw that the regression coefficient (or slope) for the predictor, theories of intelligence score, was –12.10. This slope is the unstandardized (or raw) regression coefficient. The standardized version of this regression coefficient is β = –0.51.

1.8

We previously said that the results of the study supported the researchers’ hypothesis that people who view intelligence as highly stable will be more overconfident in their performance on a test than people who view intelligence as highly changeable.

1.9

The bottom line: It’s great to feel confident about your intelligence, but if you’re sure you’re born with it, think again.

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