The Feeling of Not Knowing It All

Abstract

How do consumers assess their mastery of knowledge they have learned? We explore this question by investigating a common knowledge consumption situation: encountering opportunities for further learning. We argue and show that such opportunities can trigger a feeling-of-not-knowing-it-all (FONKIA), which lowers consumers' confidence in their mastery of the knowledge they already possess. Specifically, listing optional follow-up readings at the conclusion of a course lowered students' confidence in their mastery of the course material they had already learned (Study 1). Encountering an optional learning opportunity increased the FONKIA, which mediated the decreased confidence (Studies 2 and 3). We also document two moderators consistent with our conceptualization. First, participants primed with mastery (vs. instrumental) motivation were more negatively impacted when they encountered optional learning opportunities. Second, the more related the optional opportunities were to the target topic, the lower participants' confidence in their mastery of what they had already learned. We conclude by discussing the implications of these findings, such as encouraging further learning or harming teaching evaluations.

A mind stretched: The psychology of repeat consumption

“…Feeling like one has shallow knowledge of a particular topic is an aversive psychological state that people are motivated to reduce (e.g., the “feeling of not knowing it all” effect: Yang et al., 2019). Repeat consumption may uniquely promote feelings of newly learned mastery and expertise as a function of discovering new information about the stimulus at each repeated exposure, thereby sustaining enjoyment.…”

Omission neglect and consumer judgment and inference based on limited evidence.

“…Recent research suggests that positive affect can also increase sensitivity to omissions by increasing cognitive flexibility (Mantel et al, 2020). Debiasing techniques, such as a priori ratings of presented and omitted attributes (Kardes et al, 2006), a priori criteria consideration (Kardes et al, 2006), consider-the-unknown technique (Walters et al, 2016), the feeling of not knowing it all (Yang et al, 2019), and the distrust mindset (Gaffney et al, 2020), also improve judgment by increasing sensitivity to omissions. When omissions are detected, consumers attempt to fill gaps in knowledge by forming attribute-based, attitude-based, category-based, or schema-based inferences.…”

“…Procedures that reduce epistemic certainty or overconfidence have been found to be effective in reducing omission neglect. Methods such as a priori ratings of presented and omitted attributes (Kardes et al, 2006), a priori criteria consideration (Kardes et al, 2006), consider-the-unknown technique (Walters et al, 2016), highlighting nonalignable differences in comparative judgment contexts (Sah & Read, 2020;Sanbonmatsu et al, 1997Sanbonmatsu et al, , 2003, the feeling of not knowing it all (Yang et al, 2019), and the distrust mindset (Gaffney et al, 2020) reduce overconfidence and decrease estimates of the strength of the available evidence. Epistemic uncertainty, or uncertainty stemming from a lack of knowledge, is distinct from aleatory uncertainty, or uncertainty stemming from a stochastic or probabilistic environment (Fox & Ülkümen, 2011).…”

The benefits of deciding now and not later: The influence of the timing between acquiring knowledge and deciding on decision confidence, omission neglect bias, and choice deferral

“…However, when prompted to detect missing information, consumers reduce their confidence in the available information and form more moderate and appropriate evaluations (Gunasti and Ross, 2009;Kardes et al, 2006;Sah and Read, 2020;Sanbonmatsu et al, 2003;Walters et al, 2017). Strategies such as encouraging individuals to elaborate on their criteria for judgment (Kardes et al, 2006), deliberately forming inferences about unmentioned product attributes (Gunasti and Ross, 2009;Sanbonmatsu et al, 1991), processing comparative information of non-alignable differences (Kardes and Sanbonmatsu, 1993;Sanbonmatsu et al, 2003), employing the consider-the-unknown technique (Walters et al, 2017), or stimulating the feeling of not knowing it all (Yang et al, 2019) have been shown to enhance the perception of missing attributes in product evaluation tasks. When missing information is made more salient, the confidence in the strength of available evidence is decreased, pushing consumers to adjust their evaluations and moderate their judgments (Kardes et al, 2006;Sanbonmatsu et al, 1991Sanbonmatsu et al, , 1997.…”