--- title: Know-It-Alls More Likely To Believe Made Up Facts, Study Shows description: People who believe they are experts in a given topic are more likely to believe made-up facts within that topic are true, according to a new study. canonical: https://time.com/3964870/know-it-alls-fact-overclaim-cornell/ author: Alexandra Sifferlin article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-07-20T19:09:39.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T05:02:24.081Z article:section: Health og:title: Know-It-Alls More Likely To Believe Made Up Facts, Study Shows og:description: It's called "overclaiming" og:url: https://time.com/3964870/know-it-alls-fact-overclaim-cornell/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Know-It-Alls More Likely To Believe Made Up Facts, Study Shows twitter:description: It's called "overclaiming" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Know-It-Alls More Likely To Accept Falsehoods as Fact, Study Shows by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Jul 20, 2015 7:09 PM UTC by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Jul 20, 2015 7:09 PM UTC People who consider themselves experts in a given topic are more likely to claim knowledge of made-up “facts” about that topic, [a new study shows](http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/07/14/0956797615588195.abstract). Researchers conducted a series of experiments to assess how likely people were to believe fictions presented as fact. In one of the experiments, for example, the researchers had 100 people rate their level of knowledge for personal finance by describing their familiarity with 15 different financial terms. What the participants didn’t know was that some of the terms were fake. For instance, the researchers used made-up words like “pre-rated stocks”, “fixed-rate deduction”, and “annualized credit.” They found that the people who claimed they were personal finance experts were more likely to identify the fake words as genuine financial jargon. The researchers conducted similar tests for other topics and discovered similar results. “The more people believed they knew about finances in general, the more likely they were to overclaim knowledge of the fictitious financial terms,” said study author Stav Atir, a psychological scientist at Cornell University [in a statement](http://www.eurekalert.org/pub%5Freleases/2015-07/afps-sem071715.php). “The same pattern emerged for other domains, including biology, literature, philosophy, and geography.” The researchers argue that the findings, which are published in the journal _Psychological Science_, indicate failures among people to acknowledge gaps in their own expertise. The authors suggest that people may be less willing to educate themselves about topics they think they know everything about, even when they should. ### See The Best Biology Photos Of The Year  Two Bisons on the Grand Prismatic Spring in Yellowstone National Park, Wyo. 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