IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ebl/ecbull/eb-21-00522.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Knowledge, overconfidence, and behavior in COVID-19: results from an online survey

Author

Listed:
  • Guanlin Gao

    (Chaminade University of Honolulu)

  • Danyang Li

    (Hofstra University)

Abstract

This study answers three questions: (1) how much correct information does the U.S. public possess about COVID-19; (2) whether they hold any misconceptions or suffer from any cognitive biases regarding COVID-19; and (3) how people's knowledge level and overconfidence affect their preventative behaviors. We examined individuals' objective and subjective knowledge levels and the relationship between their knowledge, overconfidence, and behaviors using 595 observations collected from an online survey. Our results show that people with less understanding of COVID-19 are more overconfident and are less likely to take preventative actions.

Suggested Citation

  • Guanlin Gao & Danyang Li, 2022. "Knowledge, overconfidence, and behavior in COVID-19: results from an online survey," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 42(1), pages 215-223.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-21-00522
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.accessecon.com/Pubs/EB/2022/Volume42/EB-22-V42-I1-P19.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Paul Ferraro, 2010. "Know Thyself: Competence and Self-awareness," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 38(2), pages 183-196, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ryvkin, Dmitry & Krajč, Marian & Ortmann, Andreas, 2012. "Are the unskilled doomed to remain unaware?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 33(5), pages 1012-1031.
    2. Brookins, Philip & Lucas, Adriana & Ryvkin, Dmitry, 2014. "Reducing within-group overconfidence through group identity and between-group confidence judgments," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 1-12.
    3. Schlösser, Thomas & Dunning, David & Johnson, Kerri L. & Kruger, Justin, 2013. "How unaware are the unskilled? Empirical tests of the “signal extraction” counterexplanation for the Dunning–Kruger effect in self-evaluation of performance," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 85-100.
    4. Grabiszewski, Konrad & Horenstein, Alex, 2020. "Effort is not a monotonic function of skills: Results from a global mobile experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 634-652.
    5. Guest, Jon & Riegler, Robert, 2017. "Learning by doing: Do economics students self-evaluation skills improve?," International Review of Economics Education, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 50-64.
    6. Matteo Foschi, 2016. "Contracting with Type-Dependent Naïveté," Discussion Papers in Economics 16/03, Division of Economics, School of Business, University of Leicester.
    7. Ma, Zhao & Bauchet, Jonathan & Steele, Diana & Godoy, Ricardo & Radel, Claudia & Zanotti, Laura, 2017. "Comparison of Direct Transfers for Human Capital Development and Environmental Conservation," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 498-517.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    COVID-19; knowledge; overconfidence; behaviors.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I1 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health
    • D8 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-21-00522. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: John P. Conley (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.