56 Dunning-Kruger Effect and Anxiety in a Mexican population

• Published in: Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society 2023-11, Vol.29 (s1), p.841-842
• Main 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.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Anxiety; Cognitive ability; Mood & Anxiety Disorders; Poster Session 09: Psychiatric Disorders | Mood & Anxiety Disorders | Addiction | Social Cognition | Cognitive Neuroscience | Emotional and Social Processing; Workloads
• ISSN: 1355-6177; 1469-7661
• DOI: 10.1017/S1355617723010421

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