Predicting the Most Common Incorrect Response: Metacognitive Advantage of Deliberative over Intuitive Responders on Cognitive Reflection Test

In this study, we investigated the hypothesis that correct responders are at a metacognitive advantage compared to intuitively incorrect responders because they are aware that there exists an appealing but incorrect response that many would fall for. A total of 169 participants solved three CRT tasks, followed by questions about the perceived difficulty of the tasks and the most probable incorrect response that others gave. Results mainly confirmed the hypothesis: the more correct responses (or the less intuitive responses) participants gave, the more they were correct about the most prevalent incorrect responses of others. Furthermore, the more correct responses (or the less intuitive responses) participants had, the more difficult they found the tasks to be, perhaps due to the awareness of the incorrect but appealing response that would trick many others into giving a wrong response. Interestingly, the number of non-sensical responses (those neither correct nor intuitive) was positively related both to awareness of appealing incorrect responses and to the perceived difficulty of the task. This indicates that even those participants who seemingly gave non-sensical responses to CRT tasks might have a metacognitive advantage over intuitively incorrect responders. We discuss how our results fit into contemporary dual-process theories.