While both confident students and insecure students accessed the same number of pieces of information before making a judgment on the product, insecure students searched for more information from the favorable source than confident students and ended up rating the memory booster as more effective.

Similarly, the researchers found in subsequent experiments that less confident students had a more difficult time than more confident students differentiating between credible claims and weak claims for products that claimed to help meet a goal.

The role of confidence in directing behavior, though widely recognized in psychology, has received scant attention in the consumer behavior literature, write the authors. Weight loss products, alternative medicines, and dietary supplements, are examples of product categories for which reduced confidence may be relevant and for which this illusion of control may be highly prevalent.