The Dunning-Kruger effect is a type of cognitive bias in which people believe they are smarter and more capable than they are. Essentially, low-ability people do not possess the skills needed to recognize their own incompetence. The combination of poor self-awareness and low cognitive ability leads them to overestimate their capabilities.
As Charles Darwin wrote in his book - The Descent of Man “Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.”
Sources
- https://www.verywellmind.com/an-overview-of-the-dunning-kruger-effect-4160740
Representations
How the research was done?
In one experiment, for example, Dunning and Kruger asked their 65 participants to rate how funny different jokes were. Some participants were exceptionally poor at determining what other people would find funny—yet these subjects described themselves as excellent judges of humor.
Incompetent people, the researchers suggested, were not only poor performers but were also unable to accurately assess and recognize the quality of their work. This is perhaps why students who earn failing scores on exams sometimes feel they deserve a much higher score. They overestimate their knowledge and ability and cannot accurately assess their performance.
“In many cases, incompetence does not leave people disoriented, perplexed, or cautious,” wrote David Dunning in an article for Pacific Standard. “Instead, the incompetent are often blessed with an inappropriate confidence, buoyed by something that feels to them like knowledge.”
Why it happens?
People are not only incompetent; their incompetence robs them of the mental ability to realize just how inept they are.
Incompetent people tend to:
- Overestimate their skill levels
- Fail to recognize the genuine skill and expertise of other people
- Fail to recognize their own mistakes and lack of skill
The very knowledge and skills necessary to be good at a task are the same qualities that a person needs to recognize that they are not good at that task. So if a person lacks those abilities, they remain not only bad at that task but ignorant of their inability.
This effect has been attributed to a number of different explanations, including:
- An Inability to Recognize Lack of Skill and Mistakes
- A Lack of Metacognition: Metacognition refers to the ability to step back and look at one’s behavior and abilities from outside of oneself.
- A Little Knowledge Can Lead to Overconfidence