Have you ever failed at something despite doing better than everyone else? It could be a math test, a coding competition, a debate, anything you can think of (except probably not at making the best Harlem Shake video). In that case, join the Dunning Kruger club! Also known as the group of individuals who actually kind of suck but think they are amazing and talented. Let me explain.
The Dunning-Kruger effect is a cognitive bias introduced by David Dunning and Justin Kruger in their 1999 study “Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments.” The study defines the effect as thus: “the miscalibration of the incompetent stems from an error about the self, whereas the miscalibration of the highly competent stems from an error about others.” In other words, the illusory superiority of the less-competent people stems from their inexperience and the misperception from highly competent people around them.
We all know the old saying, “the first step to solve a problem is to identify it.” And that’s true, there is no better way to better yourself when you know what you are not and what your weaknesses are. But ironically, we’re not good at that either. When you start off with playing a musical instrument, you know you’re not good at it, objectively. After a few months of practice, you feel confident in playing a song that you know for a fact that you can play perfectly. And yet, your teacher calls you an incompetent worthless fool, or at the very least, is not impressed at all, much to your dismay. You get sad, lose motivation and quit the instrument altogether.
But, if you shot a video of yourself, keep practicing the instrument for a few years, play the same song and then go back, you realize that you were never more wrong in your life. You now know exactly why your instructor’s words make perfect sense. Why? Because now you’re very good at it, and that your inexperience blinded you from seeing what an expert can.
Well, then why don’t highly competent people rate themselves as such? Once you know how much there is to learn, you’ll never talk about how much you’ve learned. People with great skill know how skilled they are but also how much they’re not. You get better at assessing yourself by being better. That way you realize how much better you can be and how you can be much better.
Well, what about experts then? They’re at the top of their fields and shouldn’t have this problem at all, correct? Not exactly. They do assess their skills quite accurately, but they fail to assess the skills of the people around them. They tend to think that everyone around them is equally skilled or competent. You can call it humility, but I think it’s because they tend to interact with people of their skill level, so they can’t vouch for the average population.
This cognitive bias is not just localized to one field. Countless studies have been made in departments like health, math, engineering, sciences, politics, ethics or even gaming. A study from data taken by two companies show that 39 percent and 45 percent of software engineers from each company rated themselves to be in the top five percent.
Our current POTUS, apart from being a pathological liar and having an IQ of a brain-dead turkey with its head in the sand, is a living example of the Dunning-Kruger effect. He was never a successful businessman or a president, but his often ghastly assessments and his poor knowledge about literally everything in existence often prevent him from being better at it. This naturally affects his decisions, such as appointing Scott Pruitt, a person who denies climate change, as the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. His illusory superiority and his political power aid him in rejecting reality and substituting his own.
Dunning-Kruger effect is a fascinating phenomenon that defines cognitive bias in mathematical terms. Its seamless application in every facet in life makes it an important phenomenon to be studied. It’s something you can tell yourself when you feel like you’re not good at something or when someone says it’s very easy to build a 2000 mile wall. Asking for help is a great way to get better and to know your self-worth. That way, you can become the best in what you want to do.
*Note: This story ran Feb. 28
