CeDEx Seminar - Umberto Garfagnini (University of Surrey)

Cognitive ability and Perceived Disagreement in Learning

Do agents believe to be agreeing more with others in the long-run? This paper investigates how cognitive abilities affect disagreement in a sequential belief updating experiment with public draws from an urn. We document a persistent gap in the perception of disagreement as a function of cognitive ability. Higher cognitive ability is associated with less perceived disagreement, although the average subject underestimates the extent of actual disagreement. Information about a partner's cognitive ability affects perceived disagreement only when the partner is less cognitively able. We link our findings to overconfidence and projection of own cognitive abilities onto others.