56 Dunning-Kruger Effect and Anxiety in a Mexican population
Authors: Acosta Natalia L. , Smith Krissy E. , Victor Tara L. , Hardy David H. , Fernandez Alberto L. , Cervantes Raymundo , Quiñones Ana Paula P. , Castañeda Carolina G. , Razani Jill , Muñoz Isabel D.C. , Lopez-Hernandez Daniel W. 
Published: December 2023

Objective:

The Dunning-Krueger effect is a cognitive bias where individuals tend to overestimate their abilities in areas where they are less competent. The Cordoba Naming Test (CNT) is a 30-item confrontation naming task. Hardy and Wright (2018) conditionally validated a measure of perceived mental workload called the NASA Task Load Index (NASA-TLX). Researchers reported that workload ratings on the NASA-TLX increased with increased task demands on a cognitive task. Anxiety is known as an emotion that can make an individual more susceptible to develop a mental health condition. We examine if the Dunning-Krueger effect occurs in a Mexican population with and without current symptoms of anxiety and possible factors driving individuals to overestimate their abilities on the CNT. We predicted the abnormal symptoms of anxiety (ASA) group would report better CNT performance, report higher perceived workloads on the CNT, and underperform on the CNT compared to the normal symptoms of anxiety (NSA) group. We also predicted the low-performance group would report better CNT performance, report higher perceived workloads on the CNT, and underperform on the CNT compared to the high-performance group.

Participants and Methods:

The sample consisted of 192 Mexican participants with NSA (79 low-performance & 113 high-performance) and 74 Mexican participants with ASA (44 low-performance & 30 high-performance). Participants completed the CNT, NASA-TLX, and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) in Spanish. The NASA-TLX was used to evaluate perceived workloads after the completion of the CNT. Meanwhile, the HADS was used to create our anxiety groups. Finally, CNT raw scores were converted into T-scores, which then were averaged to create the following two groups: low-performance (CNT T-Score <50) and high-performance (CNT T-Score 50+). A series of 2x2 ANCOVAs, controlling for gender were used to evaluate CNT performance and perceived workloads.

Results:

We found a significant interaction where the low-performance ASA and the high-performance NSA groups demonstrated better CNT performance and reported higher perceived workloads (i.e., performance, temporal demand) on the CNT compared to their respective counterparts (i.e., low-performance NSA & high-performance ASA groups), p's<.05, ηp's2=.02. We found a main effect where the high-performance group outperformed the low-performance group on the CNT and reported lower perceived workloads on the CNT, p's<.05, ηp's2 =.04-.46.

Conclusions:

The Dunning-Krueger effect did not occur in our sample. Participants that demonstrated better CNT performance also reported higher perceived workloads regardless of their current symptoms of anxiety. A possible explanation can be our sample's cultural norms of what would be considered as abnormal symptoms of anxiety, is a normal part of life, decreasing the possibilities to experience self-efficacy distoritions. Future studies should investigate whether the Dunning-Kruger effect may be influencing other aspects of cognitive functioning subjectively in Mexicans residing in Mexico and the United States with and without current symptoms of anxiety.