Dunning–Kruger effect: Difference between revisions
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The '''Dunning–Kruger effect''' is a [[cognitive bias]] wherein unskilled individuals suffer from [[illusory superiority]], mistakenly assessing their ability much higher than is accurate. This bias is attributed to a [[metacognition|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. |
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 [[metacognition|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.{{fact}} |
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As David Dunning and Justin Kruger of [[Cornell University]] conclude |
As David Dunning and Justin Kruger of [[Cornell University]] conclude: "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."<ref name="Kruger">{{Cite journal|title=Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments |first=Justin |last=Kruger |first2=David |last2=Dunning |journal=[[Journal of Personality and Social Psychology]] |volume=77 |issue=6 |pages=1121–34 |year=1999 |pmid=10626367 |doi=10.1037/0022-3514.77.6.1121 |id={{citeseerx|10.1.1.64.2655}} }}</ref> |
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==Proposal== |
==Proposal== |
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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.<ref name="Kruger" /><ref name="psymq">{{Cite journal|title=Why people fail to recognize their own incompetence |first=David |last=Dunning |first2=Kerri|last2=Johnson |first3=Joyce|last3=Ehrlinger |first4=Justin|last4=Kruger |journal=[[Current Directions in Psychological Science]] |volume=12 |issue=3 |pages=83–87 |year=2003 |doi=10.1111/1467-8721.01235 |url=http://psy.mq.edu.au/vision/~peterw/corella/237/incompetence.pdf |format=PDF |accessdate=29 December 2012}}</ref> 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 [[Closed-circuit television|surveillance cameras]].<ref name="post2010">{{cite news|title=Why Losers Have Delusions of Grandeur|work=[[New York Post]] |date=23 May 2010 |url=http://nypost.com/2010/05/23/why-losers-have-delusions-of-grandeur/ |accessdate=19 March 2014}}</ref> They noted that earlier studies suggested that ignorance of standards of performance lies behind a great deal of incorrect self-assessments of competence. This pattern was seen in studies of skills as diverse as [[reading comprehension]], operating a motor vehicle, and playing chess or tennis. |
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.<ref name="Kruger" /><ref name="psymq">{{Cite journal|title=Why people fail to recognize their own incompetence |first=David |last=Dunning |first2=Kerri|last2=Johnson |first3=Joyce|last3=Ehrlinger |first4=Justin|last4=Kruger |journal=[[Current Directions in Psychological Science]] |volume=12 |issue=3 |pages=83–87 |year=2003 |doi=10.1111/1467-8721.01235 |url=http://psy.mq.edu.au/vision/~peterw/corella/237/incompetence.pdf |format=PDF |accessdate=29 December 2012}}</ref> 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 [[Closed-circuit television|surveillance cameras]].<ref name="post2010">{{cite news|title=Why Losers Have Delusions of Grandeur|work=[[New York Post]] |date=23 May 2010 |url=http://nypost.com/2010/05/23/why-losers-have-delusions-of-grandeur/ |accessdate=19 March 2014}}</ref> They noted that earlier studies suggested that ignorance of standards of performance lies behind a great deal of incorrect self-assessments of competence. This pattern was seen in studies of skills as diverse as [[reading comprehension]], operating a motor vehicle, and playing chess or tennis.{{fact}} |
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Dunning and Kruger proposed that, for a given skill, incompetent people will |
Dunning and Kruger proposed that, for a given skill, incompetent people will:<ref>{{Cite web |
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| url = http://arstechnica.com/science/2012/05/revisiting-why-incompetents-think-theyre-awesome/3/ |
| url = http://arstechnica.com/science/2012/05/revisiting-why-incompetents-think-theyre-awesome/3/ |
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| title = Revisiting why incompetents think they’re awesome | page = 3 |
| title = Revisiting why incompetents think they’re awesome | page = 3 |
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⚫ | Dunning has since drawn an analogy ("the [[anosognosia]] of everyday life")<ref name="morris">{{Cite news|last=Morris |first=Errol |authorlink=Errol Morris |title=The Anosognosic's Dilemma: Something's Wrong but You'll Never Know What It Is (Part 1) |work=[[New York Times]] |date=20 June 2010 |url=http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/the-anosognosics-dilemma-1/ |accessdate=7 March 2011}}</ref><ref name="selfinsight">{{cite book|last=Dunning |first=David |title=Self-Insight: Roadblocks and Detours on the Path to Knowing Thyself (Essays in Social Psychology) |publisher=Psychology Press |year=2005 |pages=14–15 |isbn=1-84169-074-0}}</ref> with a condition in which a person who suffers a [[physical disability]] because of [[brain injury]] seems unaware of or denies the existence of the disability, even for dramatic impairments such as [[blindness]] or [[paralysis]]. |
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⚫ | Dunning has since drawn an analogy ("the [[anosognosia]] of everyday life")<ref name="morris">{{Cite news|last=Morris |first=Errol |authorlink=Errol Morris |title=The Anosognosic's Dilemma: Something's Wrong but You'll Never Know What It Is (Part 1) |work=[[New York Times]] |date=20 June 2010 |url=http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/the-anosognosics-dilemma-1/ |accessdate=7 March 2011}}</ref><ref name="selfinsight">{{cite book|last=Dunning |first=David |title=Self-Insight: Roadblocks and Detours on the Path to Knowing Thyself (Essays in Social Psychology) |publisher=Psychology Press |year=2005 |pages=14–15 |isbn=1-84169-074-0}}</ref> with a condition in which a person who suffers a [[physical disability]] because of [[brain injury]] seems unaware of or denies the existence of the disability, even for dramatic impairments such as [[blindness]] or [[paralysis]].{{fact}} |
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{{Quote|If you’re incompetent, you can’t know you’re incompetent. […] the skills you need to produce a right answer are exactly the skills you need to recognize what a right answer is.|David Dunning<ref name=morris/>}} |
{{Quote|If you’re incompetent, you can’t know you’re incompetent. […] the skills you need to produce a right answer are exactly the skills you need to recognize what a right answer is.|David Dunning<ref name=morris/>}} |
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Ehrlinger et al. (2008) made an attempt to test alternative explanations but came to qualitatively similar conclusions to the original work. The paper concludes that the root cause is that, in contrast to high performers, "poor performers do not learn from feedback suggesting a need to improve".<ref name="unskilledunaware">{{Cite journal|title=Why the unskilled are unaware: Further explorations of (absent) self-insight among the incompetent |format=PDF |journal=[[Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes]] |issue=1 |year=2008 |pages=98–121 |first1=Joyce |last1=Ehrlinger |first2=Kerri |last2=Johnson |first3=Matthew |last3=Banner |first4=David |last4=Dunning |first5=Justin |last5=Kruger |doi=10.1016/j.obhdp.2007.05.002 |volume=105 |pmc=2702783 |pmid=19568317}}</ref> |
Ehrlinger et al. (2008) made an attempt to test alternative explanations but came to qualitatively similar conclusions to the original work. The paper concludes that the root cause is that, in contrast to high performers, "poor performers do not learn from feedback suggesting a need to improve".<ref name="unskilledunaware">{{Cite journal|title=Why the unskilled are unaware: Further explorations of (absent) self-insight among the incompetent |format=PDF |journal=[[Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes]] |issue=1 |year=2008 |pages=98–121 |first1=Joyce |last1=Ehrlinger |first2=Kerri |last2=Johnson |first3=Matthew |last3=Banner |first4=David |last4=Dunning |first5=Justin |last5=Kruger |doi=10.1016/j.obhdp.2007.05.002 |volume=105 |pmc=2702783 |pmid=19568317}}</ref> |
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Studies on the Dunning–Kruger effect tend to focus on American test subjects. A study on some [[East Asia]]n subjects suggested that something like the opposite of the Dunning–Kruger effect may operate on self-assessment and motivation to improve.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=DeAngelis |first=Tori |title=Why we overestimate our competence |work=[[Monitor on Psychology]] |publisher=American Psychological Association |date=Feb 2003 |url=http://www.apa.org/monitor/feb03/overestimate.aspx |volume=34 |issue=2 |page=60 |doi= |accessdate=7 March 2011}}</ref> East Asians tend to underestimate their abilities and see underachievement as a chance to improve themselves and get along with others. |
Studies on the Dunning–Kruger effect tend to focus on American test subjects. A study on some [[East Asia]]n subjects suggested that something like the opposite of the Dunning–Kruger effect may operate on self-assessment and motivation to improve.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=DeAngelis |first=Tori |title=Why we overestimate our competence |work=[[Monitor on Psychology]] |publisher=American Psychological Association |date=Feb 2003 |url=http://www.apa.org/monitor/feb03/overestimate.aspx |volume=34 |issue=2 |page=60 |doi= |accessdate=7 March 2011}}</ref> East Asians tend to underestimate their abilities and see underachievement as a chance to improve themselves and get along with others.{{fact}} |
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==Awards== |
==Awards== |
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==References== |
==References== |
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{{Reflist |
{{Reflist}} |
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==Further reading== |
==Further reading== |
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* {{cite journal |last=Dunning |first=David |title=We Are All Confident Idiots |journal=Pacific Standard |publisher=Miller-McCune Center for Research, Media, and Public Policy |date=27 October 2014 |url=http://www.psmag.com/navigation/health-and-behavior/confident-idiots-92793/ |accessdate=28 October 2014}} A popular commentary by David Dunning, with links to other articles, about the research program on how human beings evaluate their own knowledge and competence. |
* {{cite journal |last=Dunning |first=David |title=We Are All Confident Idiots |journal=Pacific Standard |publisher=Miller-McCune Center for Research, Media, and Public Policy |date=27 October 2014 |url=http://www.psmag.com/navigation/health-and-behavior/confident-idiots-92793/ |accessdate=28 October 2014}} A popular commentary by David Dunning, with links to other articles, about the research program on how human beings evaluate their own knowledge and competence. |
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Revision as of 11:41, 21 February 2015
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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.[citation needed]
As David Dunning and Justin Kruger of Cornell University conclude: "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."[1]
Proposal
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.[3] They noted that earlier studies suggested that ignorance of standards of performance lies behind a great deal of incorrect self-assessments of competence. This pattern was seen in studies of skills as diverse as reading comprehension, operating a motor vehicle, and playing chess or tennis.[citation needed]
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
Dunning has since drawn an analogy ("the anosognosia of everyday life")[5][6] with a condition in which a person who suffers a physical disability because of brain injury seems unaware of or denies the existence of the disability, even for dramatic impairments such as blindness or paralysis.[citation needed]
If you’re incompetent, you can’t know you’re incompetent. […] the skills you need to produce a right answer are exactly the skills you need to recognize what a right answer is.
— David Dunning[5]
Supporting studies
Dunning and Kruger set out to test these hypotheses on Cornell undergraduates in psychology courses. In a series of studies, they examined the subjects' self-assessment of logical reasoning skills, grammatical skills, and humor. After being shown their test scores, the subjects were again asked to estimate their own rank: the competent group accurately estimated their rank, while the incompetent group overestimated theirs. As Dunning and Kruger noted:
Across four studies, the authors found that participants scoring in the bottom quartile on tests of humor, grammar, and logic grossly overestimated their test performance and ability. Although test scores put them in the 12th percentile, they estimated themselves to be in the 62nd.[1]
Meanwhile, people with true ability tended to underestimate their relative competence. Roughly, participants who found tasks to be easy erroneously assumed, to some extent, that the tasks must also be easy for others.[1]
A follow-up study, reported in the same paper, suggests that grossly incompetent students improved their ability to estimate their rank after minimal tutoring in the skills they had previously lacked, regardless of the negligible improvement in actual skills.[1]
In 2003, Dunning and Joyce Ehrlinger, also of Cornell University, published a study that detailed a shift in people's views of themselves when influenced by external cues. Participants in the study, Cornell University undergraduates, were given tests of their knowledge of geography, some of the tests intended to affect their self-views positively, some negatively. They were then asked to rate their performance, and those given the positive tests reported significantly better performance than those given the negative.[7]
Daniel Ames and Lara Kammrath extended this work to sensitivity to others and the subjects' perception of how sensitive they were.[8]
Research conducted by Burson et al. (2006) set out to test one of the core hypotheses put forth by Kruger and Muller in their paper "Unskilled, unaware, or both? The better-than-average heuristic and statistical regression predict errors in estimates of own performance", "that people at all performance levels are equally poor at estimating their relative performance".[9] To test this hypothesis, the authors investigated three different studies, which all manipulated the "perceived difficulty of the tasks and hence participants’ beliefs about their relative standing".[9] The authors found that when researchers presented subjects with moderately difficult tasks, the best and the worst performers actually varied little in their ability to accurately predict their performance. Additionally, they found that with more difficult tasks, the best performers were less accurate in predicting their performance than the worst performers. The authors concluded that these findings suggest that "judges at all skill levels are subject to similar degrees of error".[9]
Ehrlinger et al. (2008) made an attempt to test alternative explanations but came to qualitatively similar conclusions to the original work. The paper concludes that the root cause is that, in contrast to high performers, "poor performers do not learn from feedback suggesting a need to improve".[10]
Studies on the Dunning–Kruger effect tend to focus on American test subjects. A study on some East Asian subjects suggested that something like the opposite of the Dunning–Kruger effect may operate on self-assessment and motivation to improve.[11] East Asians tend to underestimate their abilities and see underachievement as a chance to improve themselves and get along with others.[citation needed]
Awards
Dunning and Kruger were awarded the 2000 satirical Ig Nobel Prize in Psychology for their paper, "Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments".[12]
Historical antecedents
Although the Dunning–Kruger effect was formulated in 1999, Dunning and Kruger have noted similar observations by philosophers and scientists, including Confucius ("Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance"),[2] Socrates ("I know that I know nothing"), Bertrand Russell ("One of the painful things about our time is that those who feel certainty are stupid, and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision"),[10] and Charles Darwin, whom they quoted in their original paper ("Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge").[1]
Geraint Fuller, commenting on the paper, noted that Shakespeare expressed a similar sentiment in As You Like It ("The Foole doth thinke he is wise, but the wiseman knowes himselfe to be a Foole" (V.i)).[13]
See also
- Curse of knowledge
- Four stages of competence
- Hanlon's razor
- Impostor syndrome
- Not even wrong
- Overconfidence effect
- Self-efficacy
- Self-serving bias
- Superiority complex
References
- ^ a b c d e f Kruger, Justin; Dunning, David (1999). "Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 77 (6): 1121–34. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.77.6.1121. PMID 10626367. CiteSeerx: 10.1.1.64.2655.
- ^ a b Dunning, David; Johnson, Kerri; Ehrlinger, Joyce; Kruger, Justin (2003). "Why people fail to recognize their own incompetence" (PDF). Current Directions in Psychological Science. 12 (3): 83–87. doi:10.1111/1467-8721.01235. Retrieved 29 December 2012.
- ^ "Why Losers Have Delusions of Grandeur". New York Post. 23 May 2010. Retrieved 19 March 2014.
- ^ Lee, Chris (25 May 2012). "Revisiting why incompetents think they're awesome". Arstechnica.com. p. 3. Retrieved 11 January 2014.
- ^ a b Morris, Errol (20 June 2010). "The Anosognosic's Dilemma: Something's Wrong but You'll Never Know What It Is (Part 1)". New York Times. Retrieved 7 March 2011.
- ^ Dunning, David (2005). Self-Insight: Roadblocks and Detours on the Path to Knowing Thyself (Essays in Social Psychology). Psychology Press. pp. 14–15. ISBN 1-84169-074-0.
- ^ Ehrlinger, Joyce; Dunning, David (January 2003). "How Chronic Self-Views Influence (and Potentially Mislead) Estimates of Performance". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 84 (1). American Psychological Association: 5–17. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.84.1.5. PMID 12518967.
- ^ Ames, Daniel R.; Kammrath, Lara K. (September 2004). "Mind-Reading and Metacognition: Narcissism, not Actual Competence, Predicts Self-Estimated Ability" (PDF). Journal of Nonverbal Behavior. 28 (3): 187–209. doi:10.1023/B:JONB.0000039649.20015.0e. Retrieved 21 July 2013.
- ^ a b c Burson, K.; Larrick, R.; Klayman, J. (2006). "Skilled or unskilled, but still unaware of it: how perceptions of difficulty drive miscalibration in relative comparisons" (PDF). Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 90 (1): 5. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.90.1.60. PMID 16448310. hdl:2027.42/39168.
- ^ a b Ehrlinger, Joyce; Johnson, Kerri; Banner, Matthew; Dunning, David; Kruger, Justin (2008). "Why the unskilled are unaware: Further explorations of (absent) self-insight among the incompetent" (PDF). Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. 105 (1): 98–121. doi:10.1016/j.obhdp.2007.05.002. PMC 2702783. PMID 19568317.
- ^ DeAngelis, Tori (February 2003). "Why we overestimate our competence". Monitor on Psychology. 34 (2). American Psychological Association: 60. Retrieved 7 March 2011.
- ^ "Ig Nobel Past Winners". Retrieved 7 March 2011.
- ^ Fuller, Geraint (2011). "Ignorant of ignorance?". Practical Neurology. 11 (6): 365. doi:10.1136/practneurol-2011-000117. PMID 22100949.
Further reading
- Dunning, David (27 October 2014). "We Are All Confident Idiots". Pacific Standard. Miller-McCune Center for Research, Media, and Public Policy. Retrieved 28 October 2014. A popular commentary by David Dunning, with links to other articles, about the research program on how human beings evaluate their own knowledge and competence.