The Dunning-Kruger effect... when incompetence feels like knowledge

General Discussion
#1

The Dunning-Kruger effect… when incompetence feels like knowledge

Have you ever run across that guy on the forums? The guy with the ‘brilliant’ new idea, who truly believes he fully understands the very complex math and engineering behind his proposal, but in reality has absolutely no clue what he is talking about?

He’ll often vehemently argue with people who are vastly more knowledgeable and intelligent than him, defending his idea until the end, despite mountains of evidence proving that his idea is bad, and his reasoning, flawed.

Well, apparently there is a scientific explanation for this behavior, as explained by the Dunning-Kruger effect…

[i][b]The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias wherein unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly assessing their ability to be much higher than is accurate. This bias is attributed to a metacognitive inability of the unskilled to recognize their ineptitude. Conversely, highly skilled individuals tend to underestimate their relative competence, erroneously assuming that tasks which are easy for them are also easy for others

Dunning and Kruger proposed that, for a given skill, incompetent people will:[4]

fail to recognize their own lack of skill
fail to recognize genuine skill in others
fail to recognize the extremity of their inadequacy
recognize and acknowledge their own previous lack of skill, if they are exposed to training for that skill
[/b][/i]

http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/lessons-from-dunning-kruger/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect

A couple of awesome quotes, that made me laugh out loud…

…an ignorant mind is precisely not a spotless, empty vessel, but one that’s filled with the clutter of irrelevant or misleading life experiences, theories, facts, intuitions, strategies, algorithms, heuristics, metaphors, and hunches that regrettably have the look and feel of useful and accurate knowledge.

…what’s curious is that, in many cases, incompetence does not leave people disoriented, perplexed, or cautious. Instead, the incompetent are often blessed with an inappropriate confidence, buoyed by something that feels to them like knowledge.

…the phenomenon was first tested in a series of experiments published in 1999 by David Dunning and Justin Kruger of the Department of Psychology, Cornell University.[1][2] The study was inspired by the case of McArthur Wheeler, a man who robbed two banks after covering his face with lemon juice in the mistaken belief that, because lemon juice is usable as invisible ink, it would prevent his face from being recorded on surveillance cameras.

#2

Pretty neat read . The lemon juice thing is hilarious.

#3

Interesting stuff, internet forums are a fantastic exposer to dumbasses that you wouldn’t otherwise meet :smiley:

I bet there is an evolutionary aspect to this theory, false confidence probably helps people get their asses off the couch and attack the problems of the day. A lot of day to day problems are solved by simply attacking with vigor. Many of the great geniuses in history were also some of the worst at life.

#4

LOL! That lemon juice thing is indeed hilarious. fail

#5

Hahahhahahahah seriously lemon juice…
Well at least we can now properly diagnose quite a few forum members. Great article & thanks for sharing!

#6

Never thought about that, but you’re probably right.

#7

Did you take this idea from JCviggen’s post? Regardless, I had never heard of it before he made a completely fitting post.

#8

You have an overly negative view of the study, which I suppose is okay to use in a large population like the 2 billion people on the Internet or the 150 million people in the United States who qualify for financing on an Audi.

Most people use the framework within high performing organizations, like the place you might work. The first type is making an error about your ability to complete individual work as others around you have (in some dimension like time or quality). The second error people make is asssuming other people in your department or on your team can complete work with the same ease that you figured it out. Leaders and senior folks isolate themselves when they assume other people will just succeed like they did.