The Dunning-Krueger effect is a special cognitive distortion. Its essence lies in the fact that people with a low level of skill often make mistakes, and at the same time are unable to admit their mistakes - precisely because of low qualifications. They judge their abilities unreasonably high, while those who are highly qualified tend to doubt their abilities and to consider others more competent. They tend to think that others estimate their abilities as low as themselves.
Cognitive distortions according to Dunning-Kruger
In 1999, scientists David Dunning and Justin Krueger put forward a hypothesis about the existence of this phenomenon. Their assumption was based on Darwin's popular phrase that ignorance breeds confidence more often than knowledge. A similar idea was expressed earlier by Bertrand Russell, who said that in our days stupid people radiate confidence , and those who understand a lot are always full of doubts.
To verify the correctness of the hypothesis, the scientists went the beaten path and decided to conduct a series of experiments. For the study, they chose a group of psychology students at Cornell University. The goal was to prove that it was incompetence in any field, whatever, that could lead to excessive self-confidence. This is applicable to any activity, be it study, work, playing chess or understanding the text read.
The conclusions about incompetent people were as follows:
- they are always inclined to overestimate their knowledge, skills and abilities;
- they can not assess the adequately high level of knowledge of other people because of their incompetence;
- they can not understand that they are incompetent.
It is also interesting that as a result of training they can realize that they were previously incompetent, but this is true even in cases when their real level has not increased.
The authors of the study were awarded a prize for their discovery, and later other aspects of the Kruger effect were investigated.
Dunning-Krueger Syndrome: Criticism
So, the Danning-Krueger effect sounds like this: "People who have a low level of skill make wrong conclusions and make unsuccessful decisions, but they are not able to realize their mistakes due to their low level of qualification."
Everything is quite simple and transparent, but, as always happens in similar situations, the statement was faced with criticism. Some scientists have stated that there are not and can not be special mechanisms that cause mistakes in self-esteem . The thing is. That absolutely every person on Earth tends to consider himself a little better than average. It is difficult to say that this is an adequate self-assessment for a close person, but for the smartest this is the least of what can be within the framework of the right one. Proceeding from this it turns out that incompetent overestimate,
In addition, it was suggested that all were given too simple tasks, and the smart could not assess their power, and not very smart - to show modesty.
After this, scientists actively began to recheck their hypotheses. They offered the students to predict their result and gave them a difficult task. To predict it was necessary to have a level relative to others and the number of correct answers. Surprisingly, the initial hypothesis was confirmed in both cases, but the excellent students guessed the number of points, and not their place in the list.
Other experiments were carried out which also proved that the Dunning-Krueger hypothesis is true and fair in a variety of situations.