Improving self-knowledge: How performance feedback impacts individuals’ self-estimates of their cognitive abilities

• Self-estimates of cognitive abilities are often inaccurate. • Performance feedback did not improve self-estimate accuracy in two experiments. • Task experience boosted correlations between self-estimates and performance. • Thus, task experience rather than simple feedback might foster self-knowledge. Individuals assess their cognitive abilities in different situations, however, those self-estimates are rather inaccurate. In two experiments (each N = 200), we investigated whether performance feedback improves the accuracy of self-estimates. Our participants performed cognitive tasks and estimated their abilities beforehand. One half received feedback on their performance, whereas the other half did not. Then, all participants estimated their abilities and performed each task again. Overall, performance feedback did not impact self-estimate accuracy for a variety of cognitive abilities. Interestingly, the correlations between performance ratings and performance got higher over time in both groups and for most ability domains, suggesting that practice enhances self-estimate accuracy. Thus, experience with a task and self-estimates might foster self-knowledge, rather than performance feedback.