Sex Differences in Self-Confidence as a Function of Feedback and Social Cues

Abstract

Sex differences in self-confidence were assessed by measuring the discrepancy between 20 male and 20 female subjects' perceived and actual reaction times (RTs) in a matching task. Subjects judged whether or not two letters were the same. After each trial, perceived and actual RTs were recorded. Whereas half of the subjects received RT feedback from the experimenter after the experimental trials, the other half did not. Half of the subjects were given a standard by which to evaluate their own performance and the other half were not. The absence of a significant difference between the actual RTs of 20 male and 20 female subjects indicates that they were equally efficient in matching letters. However, the extent to which subjects would underestimate their RTs was sex-dependent: without RT feedback, women underestimated their actual RTs more than men. In contrast to previous findings, relative to men, women exhibited no tendency to devaluate their performance.