Confidence Freeze: Early Success Induces a Metastable Decoupling of Metacognition and Behaviour

2026-03-21

AI Summary

This study investigates maladaptive persistence following strategy failure, a common human tendency to maintain ineffective choices despite negative feedback. Using a multi-reversal two-armed bandit task (N = 332; ~20,000 trials) combined with behavioral measures and metacognitive confidence ratings, the research demonstrates that an initial 90% success rate leads participants to endure an average of 6.2 consecutive losses after the first rule reversal before switching strategies. Concurrently, confidence ratings plummeted from 5 to 2, revealing a striking dissociation between behavior and metacognition. The authors propose a novel “confidence freezing” mechanism, whereby early success induces a temporary decoupling of metacognitive awareness from behavioral adjustment. This challenges the traditional view of persistence as a stable personality trait, instead framing it as a dynamic state shaped by recent learning history.

Technology Category

• Cognitive Modeling & Cognitive Systems: Adaptive Behavior
• Search and Optimization: Metareasoning and Metaheuristics
• Game Theory and Economic Paradigms: Adversarial Learning

Application Category

• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Metrics for user behavior and evaluating success
• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Sustainability of Web economics
• Responsible Web: Machine-in-the-loop, human agency and autonomy

Abstract

Humans must flexibly arbitrate between exploring alternatives and exploiting learned strategies, yet they frequently exhibit maladaptive persistence by continuing to execute failing strategies despite accumulating negative evidence. Here we propose a ``confidence-freeze'' account that reframes such persistence as a dynamic learning state rather than a stable dispositional trait. Using a multi-reversal two-armed bandit task across three experiments (total N = 332; 19,920 trials), we first show that human learners normally make use of the symmetric statistical structure inherent in outcome trajectories: runs of successes provide positive evidence for environmental stability and thus for strategy maintenance, whereas runs of failures provide negative evidence and should raise switching probability. Behaviour in the control group conformed to this normative pattern. However, individuals who experienced a high rate of early success (90\% vs.\ 60\%) displayed a robust and selective distortion after the first reversal: they persisted through long stretches of non-reward (mean = 6.2 consecutive losses) while their metacognitive confidence ratings simultaneously dropped from 5 to 2 on a 7-point scale.

Problem

• maladaptive persistence
• metacognition
• exploration-exploitation
• strategy maintenance
• behavioral flexibility

Innovation

• confidence freeze
• metacognition-behaviour decoupling
• multi-reversal bandit task
• exploration-exploitation arbitration
• dynamic learning state