You Say You Know It All

We've all met these people: They've seen everything before but get
it all wrong nonetheless. So why do people overstate their knowledge?
It's not necessarily a calculated effort to impress others. Some people
may just think that everything they encounter is familiar to them, even
if it's entirely fabricated.

Canadian researchers asked 211 students to rate their knowledge of
cultural referents such as
The Lusitaniaor Pygmalion, as well as non-existent
items such as "El Puente" or "1966 Glass Animal." Students with
narcissistic character traits (as determined by an earlier personality
test) were more likely to express familiarity with all items, including
the fake ones. Subjects then viewed the same items and new ones, and
indicated their certainty about what they'd already seen. Subjects given
more time to reflect on the items were just as likely to falsely claim
familiarity with them, leading Del Paulhus, Ph.D., to conclude that
overclaiming is an unconscious process.

Paulhus, a professor of psychology at the University of British
Columbia in Vancouver, believes that such behavior results from
personality traits such as narcissism as well as a memory bias.

"People who overclaim are likely not aware of their behavior,"
Paulhus states in a paper presented at the American Psychological
Association annual meeting. "Perhaps [the behavior] becomes more habitual
over time and thus becomes a default reaction in relevant
situations."