Talk:Dunning–Kruger effect/Archive 3

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Whether to add Trump as an example?

I say NO. This article is about a psychological term. It does not list any other living or dead people as examples. Making a whole section about "contemporary politicians" is bad enough; making it be entirely about one very controversial person is worse. I think this article should stay with what appears to be its longstanding policy, of not assigning this label to individuals. For one thing, this "effect" is highly insulting to the people it is applied to, violating BLP almost by definition. In any case we should not be applying psychiatric or psychological labels to people, even when the person applying the label is an "expert", unless the person him/herself uses the label, or a person who has actually examined or treated them uses it (which in most jurisdictions would require the person's permission). I opened a discussion on this subject to the BLP talk page a few weeks ago; the discussion is still visible at Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons#Mental health of a subject. The general conclusion was that articles about living people should not include speculative or academic or "long distance" evaluation of the mental health of living people. --MelanieN (talk) 22:21, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

• Well, whether ascribing a condition is insulting or not isn't really relevant. It is entirely conceivable that in such a case the three conditions (neutrality, verififiability, no original research) are met. In this case, Herostratus has some solid sourcing and, what's more, this is, it seems to me, one of those conditions where a "long distance" diagnosis can be made with some confidence, as a few eminent psychoanalysts have. That's not to say we should put Trium in here, of course (I think not--it's too hip for my taste and undue in a couple of ways), but this isn't automatically, or a priori, a BLP violation. There's plenty of BLP-violating material floating around about Trump, and much of it much worse. Drmies (talk) 03:26, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

This sounds like a WP:OSE argument. Things like the Goldwater rule exist for good reason. Even if Wikipedia isn't bound to obey them, there is a matter of encyclopedic value vs. well-source tabloid nonsense. If a mental health professional evaluates or someone credentialed to make a determination evaluates Donald Trump as a patient and results are disclosed then okay. If not, we're just enabling attention-grabbing people with degrees. - Scarpy (talk) 05:26, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

I see your point re:the Goldwater rule, but what we have here is not tabloid nonsense. The two aren't mutually exclusive. Drmies (talk) 05:38, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

I thought a bit about adding this material, and I think it's a service to the reader, since concrete examples can be an aid to knowledge, and otherwise justified -- enough to have a proper RfC, which I'm working up. I'll post it presently. Herostratus (talk) 05:59, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

As an aside: Dunning-Kruger is not about mental health. Ignorance and its consequences are not a disease. The effect is just a correlation between ignorance and self assurance.

Trump is obviously the most visible example on the extreme end of both spectra and a wonderful incarnation and demonstration of the effect, but you need a little knowledge to appreciate that - Dunning-Kruger again - and a lot of people don't have that knowledge, otherwise he wouldn't be president. Therefore, since a lot of people would not get it and we try to be comprehensible, I think we should not include him. --Hob Gadling (talk) 10:41, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

Even if what you're saying is true, it's still strikes me as a bad reason for inclusion. Of all the possible examples we could include, this one is the most politically charged in 2017 and seems more like attention grabbing than anything else. It doesn't seem in keeping with WP:NPOV, it looks more like we're trying to be a cache of political arguments against a specific politician. (For any one who will ask here I voted for Gary Johnson and suggested my friends in swing states vote for Hillary). - Scarpy (talk) 19:46, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

Read my last sentence. --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:20, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

• Support with the condition that any statement made in this article is based off multiple reliable sources so as to avoid issue with WP:BLP. Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 11:03, 2 March 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose the addition. It is ludicrous. The article is about a term related to "low-ability individuals [who] suffer from illusory superiority". Would the proposers of this text addition tell me who has a more superior position in the world than the president of the United States? Do they think the power the position gives to its holder is "illusory"? Do the proposers of the addition actually consider the ability to be successfully elected president of the United States is a display of "low-ability"? Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 17:38, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

You seem to have misunderstood. This is about an illusion of superiority in skill, not in political power. Trump definitely seems to believe nobody is better than him at various things he's not an expert in. (That said, I oppose the addition too -- it's unhelpful.) - Fyrius (talk) 11:48, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose - just to restate again, this specific example in this specific article makes Wikipedia look partisan and is not keeping with WP:NPOV. - Scarpy (talk) 19:49, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

The point is not whether Wikipedia looks partisan or not. The point is whether it is notable and true enough. Just because Trump happens to be in power doesn't in any way mean he is less accountable and should not be called out as a perfect example of incompetence. This is objective, and not partisan if you view it in the lens of the broader world. Carl Fredrik 💌📧 03:38, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

To quote you User:CFCF - You call the president of America "a perfect example of incompetence". - this is a man who was the winner of a competition for the highest political house in the world, a very successful businessman, a loving father, such a claim is inconceivable. at least it is from an outside uninvolved reflection. I had a look at some of the links being offered to support this addition here as offered below and I saw also a lot of opinionated reporting. The idea that from a neutral position the first person in the world to be "a perfect example of incompetence" and to need adding to this article is The President of America is strange indeed. Govindaharihari (talk) 04:19, 4 March 2017 (UTC) 03:48, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

I'm not the one saying it, look at the sources. It's also possible to be incompetent in one field and not in another. Both his paternal devotion and his business acumen are also disputed to say the least... But that is beside the point. Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 04:09, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Sorry CFCF, I had an edit conflict and added it in late. As I was trying to say above - I had a look at some of the links being offered to support this addition here as offered below and I saw also a lot of opinionated reporting. Govindaharihari (talk) 04:22, 4 March 2017 (UTC) 

User:CFCF - I have to state my position clearly here for you, under wikipedia:policy and guidelines, I wouldn't even add here that the opinionated and Democratic attacks against Trump had derogatorily attempted to demean him by claiming he was "the perfect example of incompetence" Govindaharihari (talk) 04:34, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

User:CFCF Consider that much as been said about the size of Donald Trump's hands. I'll say they do look small to me but I'm not an expert in hands, and I'm not really sure how hand size would is quantified. So it's unsurprising to me that when I go to the article on hands there's not an section on Donald Trump although there are multiple reliable sources covering the allegations of Trump's disproportionately small hands. I don't see how this is any different. When used in connection with Trump the association with of Dunning-Kruger isn't used like a diagnosis or quantified, it's used like an ad-hominem. If we publish this we're elevating this ad-hominem and portraying it as if has encyclopedic value, violating WP:NPOV and WP:WEIGHT. - Scarpy (talk) 04:25, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Of possible (digital) interest, the popular interpretation lacks empirical support: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bju.13010/full Lewis Goudy (talk) 03:53, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose the addition (e/c). First, Trump is not a good example of DK. He looked at the rules and figured out a way to beat Clinton in the last election. That's hardly a sign of incompetence. The game was the electoral vote and not the popular vote. Trump won the electoral college. He spent substantially less than Clinton spent. Part of his field is finance. He's been a television personality for some time, so he knows how to get ratings. He made polarizing statements that made him the lead on the 6 o'clock news most nights. Free advertising. He claimed there was lots of voter fraud. Is that a stupid, unsupportable, statement, or is it a statement designed to lull Clinton supporters into believing that Clinton is winning (and going to the polls isn't necessary) while at the same time rallying Trump's base to head for the polls? Was Trump's campaign a weird accident, something run by an incompetent candidate, or strategically clever? Apparently Trump paid attention to Michael Moore while Clinton did not. How did Trump sidestep the Billy Bush incident and garner so much support from women? Trump fooled both Clinton and the pollsters. Was he an incompetent candidate? an extraordinary lucky one? or did he say what he needed to say to win the election? If Trump is a modern day Machiavelli, then he is not a good example of DK. A good example would be someone who is obviously incompetent, but if Trump were obviously incompetent to almost everybody, then he would not have won the election. So even if he is incompetent for the office, he's not a good example. His State of the Union speech got good marks from the media.
  Second, the motive for including Trump in this article seems questionable. Is the motive because he's a good example of the effect, or is the goal to label Trump an incompetent? Even a small dose of the latter clouds NPOV. The country is fractured: the half that voted for Clinton firmly believe Trump is a huge mistake; those who voted for Trump wanted to change the status quo. There will be plenty of authors who will find reasons to trash Trump.
  Third, the references are not that good. Trump is a salesman, and salesmen puff. When a salesman says "my IQ is one of the highest", do we believe him? Do we think the salesman really believes that? I don't see Slate being a sterling source about psychology. Dunning would be a strong source, but Dunning said only "perhaps". Inclusion is a poor idea. Glrx (talk) 20:40, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

  Nobody says he is incompetent at bluffing, fooling people, or winning elections - you are preaching to the choir regarding that question. He is incompetent at pretty much everything a president is supposed to do after winning the election: diplomacy, credibility, dignity, representing his people, picking competent people for important jobs, judging policies, having opinions on complex subjects such as climate change or vaccination, and so on and so on and so on. And that is what this is about. --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:41, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

• Since the main argument for notability is the appeal to the authority of "Dunning himself", I think the cited article warrants greater care in interpretation. Has "Dunning himself [actually] singled out Trump"? Where does Dunning make the diagnosis? (Calling it a diagnosis slyly suggests mental illness.) His actual introductory statement could be flagged as wiggle words if they were not rhetorical. "Many commentators have argued that Donald Trump’s dominance in the GOP presidential race can be largely explained by ignorance…" He does not say "I have argued”; to the contrary, he says "But …".

No, Dunning did not single Trump out; his article is a polite reaction to others who did so in his name.

"Dunning-Kruger Effect" is not a diagnosis of exceptional condition -- that is clear in Dunning’s own words; "... people, in general, suffer from what has become known as the Dunning-Kruger Effect." It is a common effect, as I understand it, applicable to almost anybody, because almost anybody has some areas of incompetency. I compare it with optimism bias. Apparently, everybody "suffers" from optimism bias. Optimism bias is wired into the normal human brain. Only the mildly clinically depressed are "spared" the effect.

Where Dunning really gets down to a thesis is where he reports that the most likely voters are those people who are the self-described "well-informed". "But perceiving oneself as informed was not necessarily tied to, um, being well-informed. .... well-informed voters accurately endorsed true statements about economic and social conditions in the U.S.—just as long as those statements agreed with their politics"

In short, ill-informed voters who think they are well-informed is just the nature of the game, here.

However, the Dunning-Kruger Effect makes for a great ad hominem; it is a really smart-sounding way to discredit someone (Rule #5), but, IMO, arguing the Dunning-Kruger Effect often begs the question.

Dunning specifically says it’s not just Trump; "We all run the risk of being too ill-informed to notice when our own favored candidates or national leaders make catastrophic misjudgments."

So, I Oppose the addition, on the basis that the Dunning citation is misrepresented to make a claim that Dunning in fact does not make in his article. IveGoneAway (talk) 06:20, 3 March 2017 (UTC) 01:19, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Well, let's see. "[T]he main argument for notability is ...Dunning himself". But that's not true. Dunning's article is a marker of notability. However, there are also articles in other notable publications. OK then "the main argument... is the appeal to the authority of 'Dunning himself'". But this is silly because Dunning actually is an authority on this subject. Instead of appealing to authorities, should we source our articles to people who don't know anything about the subject?? In Special relativity, shall we remove "In his initial presentation of special relativity in 1905 [Einstein] expressed these postulates as..." since we are just appealing to the authority of Einstein, and replace it with my Uncle Dwight's thoughts on the matter? Really?

Yes Dunning is somewhat circumspect, as befits an academic (this does not mean his words don't have clear meaning, though). Its also true that the the thrust of his article is mainly (although not entirely) about Trump's voters rather than Trump himself.

So for instance here Dunning says "The problem isn’t that voters are too uninformed. It is that they don’t know just how uninformed they are." Do you think he is describing the Dunning-Kruger effect? Or something else?

So then Dunning says "people, in general, suffer from what has become known as the Dunning-Kruger Effect", and you use this to conclude that "In short, ill-informed voters who think they are well-informed is just the nature of the game".

Yeah, if you take "in general" to mean "universally and to a similar degree". But then all you really have is an argument for deleting this entire article: "Since people suffer from it universally and to a similar degree, then the term is meaningless; we should no more have this article than we should have one titled Human oxygen-breathing syndrome". But that's a different discussion.

But Dunning didn't say "universally and to a similar degree"! He would be unlikely do that, since that would be tantamount to saying "My entire academic career is based on fraud or nonsense".

Oh, and Dunning then goes on to say "This syndrome may well be the key to the Trump voter — and perhaps even to the man himself. Trump has served up numerous illustrative examples of the effect as he continues his confident audition to be leader of the free world even as he seems to lack crucial information about the job.

I mean, what do you think this passage means? Perhaps here Dunning is offering his grandmother's recipe for dumplings?

But even so you say "Dunning did not single Trump out". But as the passage I quoted shows, this is not an argument but rather a flat mischaracterizing the source. That's not helpful.

The thing is, there are reasonable arguments to be made for not including the material. I don't think I agree with with them at this point, but I'm willing to be persuaded. Maybe it's too tangential to the subject. Maybe I'm wrong on the BLP angle. Maybe even if the material is good, its likely to so contentious that arguing over it is net drain on the Wikipedia not worth the small encyclopedic value of the material, or will be a distraction to the reader. And so forth.

These are reasonable arguments. If you want to make reasonable arguments we're listening. Herostratus (talk) 15:29, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Herostratus there are at least two mistakes in this discussion. One is in treating this like a diagnosis of a disease or a syndrome, which it's not. There is no Dunning-Krugerism. One does not "suffer from Dunning-Kruger" like one might suffer from the syndrome described by Hans Asperger or Tay-Sachs. Building on the first point, it's not at all clear from this article and in this context how the Dunning-Kruger effect resolves fundamental attribution error. Is the claim that if a below average chess player or medical student overrates their capabilities in chess or medicine that they will similarly overrate their abilities in everything they're below average at? Or is it better to take it as an example of a cognitive bias humans are susceptible to when they're bad at something. It seems to me like it doesn't because they only people attempting to say it describes a trait more than a state are using it opportunistically.

This second point is related to the human breathing argument above, except human breathing is obvious and the value of understanding the Dunning-Kruger effect (and having an article on it) is "hey, we know from all of this research that when humans are below average at something our brains tend to make us think we're way better at that thing than we really are. So if you want to objectively evaluate your skill at something, you should keep this in mind." In this case Trump obviously is subject to the Dunning-Kruger effect, because the research indicates anytime a human assesses his or her skill at something they are subject the Dunning-Kruger effect and Trump is human.

No specific person is an example of the Dunning-Kruger effect in the way we've been discussing it, because the Dunning-Kruger effect the tendency for bias in a person's assessment of his or her ability at something.

I would say I've basically reversed my position on Cliff Claven here too. Even fictional characters are non-examples. If we're going to pick examples, we should pick specific assessment situations where the cognitive bias is abundantly clear.

If we're not doing that, that we're creating our own Dunning-Krugerism neologism in an article about the Dunning-Kruger effect. - Scarpy (talk) 19:53, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

@Scarpy:Right. Well, I agree that it's not a medical syndrome. It's a trait. I don't see people arguing that it's medical, I think we all agree there.

For most any trait, people are on a continuum. Sometimes the continumm is a bell curve, but even if not, there are people at the extreme of the continuum. I also agree that probably different people exhibit it in different ways at different times. It's entirely possible that Donald Trump is 1) bad at chess and 2) understands and accepts that he's bad at chess; and so forth. However, our sources are not concerned with "chess" but with "being head of state and government of a world power". Whether using President Trump as an example here is opportunistic or illustrative is a matter of opinion I guess (maybe its both).

For most any trait, people are on a continuum, but this does not mean that traits do not exist. Futhermore, for most any given trait, some people exhibit it to a remarkable degree.

Assertion that Manute Bol is "remarkably tall"

Manute Bol is tall (2.3 meters). One could certainly say "Well, wait. All humans have height, so everyone is 'tall' to some degree. To call a person 'tall' is misleading". And in fact our article on Manute Bol does allude to his height at times. We say "he abandoned soccer because he was too tall". We could elide this to just "he abandoned soccer" and leave the reader to wonder why, on the grounds that "too tall" is a matter of opinion and doesn't belong -- but we don't, and I think properly.

We don't mention Bol in Height in sports and maybe shouldn't. But the "Basketball" section of that article begins "Taller players are often thought to have an advantage in basketball because...". Suppose an editor wanted to add "such as Manute Bol" to that passage as an illustrative example.

Now, I can right off think of several arguments against doing that. Maybe a concrete illustrative example there would be more distracting then enlightening. Maybe Bol's not well-known enough. Maybe it's too obvious -- everyone already has a mind picture of what "tall basketball player" means without needing an illustration. Maybe Bol's not a good example because his he didn't have a typical tall-man playing style [if that is true]. And so forth. These are cogent arguments (there are probably good arguments on the other side too). (One very good argument would be "but we we don't have good sources showing that Bol is in fact unusually tall, or considered to be unusually tall" -- but that doesn't apply to our present situation, because we do have sources for the material in question.)

One thing that IMO would not be a good argument is "But wait. Manute Bol is not especially tall. He's actually only slightly above the average height for a NBA player". That's a poor argument because it's not true. Another thing that would not be a good argument is the "There's really no such thing as 'being remarkably tall'" I described above. It's poor argument because... I mean I guess it gets into semantics and stuff but... it's silly. In real life we might say "Bob's the tall guy in the blue blazer" because it's a useful, accurate, and meaningful statement, and we don't turn off our common sense when writing for our readers.

So then one could say, "Well yeah but 'remarkably tall' is pretty obvious and objective and easily measurable, while 'exhibiting behavior described by Dunning-Kruger effect to a remarkable degree' is harder to quantify -- it's just more ineffable". I mean, its not mad to make that argument. It is harder. But "harder" does not mean "impossible". So I just don't agree. And we have good sources (including Professor Dunning) who also don't agree.

If there is such a thing as "Dunning-Kruger effect", then we have several good refs indicating that Donald Trump and/or his supporters exhibit behaviors quite consistent with it to a remarkable degree. (Behaviors -- nobody knows what his internal mental state really is, and it doesn't matter.) We understand that President Trump doesn't "have" Dunning-Kruger effect -- its not like scabies or whatever, where you either have it or you don't, and nobody's saying it is.

Illustrative examples are designed to help the reader understand the subject of an article: "Oh, I get it! Like him!". We might not want an illustrative example here. But if we do, President Trump's an excellent one:

• He's very well-known worldwide.
• Because he's the POTUS, WP:BLP arguments against using a live example are much weakened (in my opinion; it's debatable, but at least the point can be cogently made, and I did so in the section below).
• He exhibits behaviors consistent with the effect to an obvious and extreme degree (which is good for illustration).
• And we have lots of good refs saying just that. Herostratus (talk) 23:04, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

@Herostratus: No, it's not a trait. Zero evidence has been presented that it is a trait. This is the point I was making about fundamental attribution error is the difference between state and trait. I'm perplexed as to why in a very long response you've completely neglected to address the point I made. An illustrative example of a state has to describe a situation, an event, conditions under which and assessment of skill is made. Not a person. If you have not yet read the article on fundamental attribution error, I would really appreciate it if you would. I can't emphasize enough how important it is to this conversation. - Scarpy (talk) 15:57, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

@Scarpy:Well, yes its an internal state, but its an internal state that's also manifested as a trait. If it was truly only an internal state we couldn't study it and we couldn't have an article. If it's an internal state that comes in lab studies but doesn't manifest in the real world, that would be... odd, and rather inexplicable. (Besides which it's not so, which is why people don't look at Cliff Clavin and think "well, there could never be a person like that in real life".)

Yeah I read Fundamental attribution error and I don't necessarily agree with all of it... according to the article its claimed, and contested. I'm not really equipped to accept or refute the claim, just pointing out that's it's apparently not settled.

I mean one big thing is that is in real life, if you read somebody praising a a political figure, then it is logical and functional to assume that they like that political figure. It won't always be true, but statistically it will, so it's a functional way to approach life. A controlled study in a lab is different, and interesting in its own way, but not that helpful for us here.

Of course, you never know somebody's mental state. If somebody regularly goes around saying things like "Sorry losers and haters, but my I.Q. is one of the highest - and you all know it! Please don't feel so stupid or insecure, it's not your fault" in all apparent sincerity, then it's reasonable to believe that the person thinks he is highly intelligent. Right? I mean, maybe not. Maybe the person thinks he's rather stupid, and it's all part of a big, lifelong, elaborately staged and never faltered puton, even though there's no benefit to staging such an elaborate hoax, and its questionable whether a person could even pull that off over the course of lifetime, or do so without coming to believe it. Sure. But, you know, Occam's razor. Herostratus (talk) 18:07, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

@Herostratus: When you make a truth claim that something is "manifested as a trait" you need evidence to support it, or it's just white noise. In Wikipedia it's worse. It completely disqualifies you because it's either original research or synthesis.

You have to ask yourself, these below average chess players and medical students exhibiting the DK effect, would they also overestimate their abilities as nascent car mechanics? Botanists? Plumbers? Brick layers? Judokas? You might say yes, but the reality is we don't know.

Even if you successfully discredited fundamental attribution error (good luck with that) it wouldn't "traitify" this bias. You're still completely out on a limb with your assertion that the dunning Kruger effect is a personality trait, and the content of articles doesn't turn on data-less claims made on talk pages. - Scarpy (talk) 16:30, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

Donald Trump has just admitted that he did not know how that being President would be so difficult. "I loved my previous life. I had so many things going," he told Reuters in an interview. "This is more work than in my previous life. I thought it would be easier." If that is not the definition of the Dunning Kruger effect I do not know what is. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 107.181.128.29 (talk) 08:04, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

Text in question

In contempory politics

American president Donald Trump has been suggested as well-known current example of Dunning–Kruger effect.

New York magazine wrote that US president Donald Trump's "combination of over the top blustering ('My IQ is one of the highest', he has claimed) and obvious ignorance" demonstrate a classic manifestation of the syndrome, an assessment with which Dunning agreed ("one of the least prepared candidates in my lifetime, but also the most confident candidate. It seemed like the most public example of the Dunning-Kruger effect, or something that looked like the Dunning-Kruger effect, that I’d ever seen."). Slate reported that "Trump is not merely ignorant. He is also supremely confident and feels superior — the most dangerous kind of idiot", this being "the psychological concept known as the 'Dunning-Kruger' effect — put very simply, when stupid people don’t know that they are stupid — in action", while David Dunning himself, writing in Politico, noted that "the knowledge and intelligence that are required to be good at a task are often the same qualities needed to recognize that one is not good at that task — and if one lacks such knowledge and intelligence, one remains ignorant that one is not good at that task. This includes political judgment... This syndrome may well be the key to the Trump voter — and perhaps even to the man himself [as] Trump himself also exemplifies this exact pattern, showing how the Dunning-Kruger Effect can lead to what seems an indomitable sense of certainty."

References

The text is in my view decently written and neutral. However it is somewhat long to be WP:DUE in this article. I would trim it and remove some of the lesser sources. For example the twitter-quote isn't entirely appropriate.

The fact that Dunning himself has singled out Trump is however very notable, and very much worthy of inclusion. Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 11:07, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

Just a side-note, there is also a large number of better sources that could be used (see for example: [1]). If I have time a will draft an alternative section for this article. It might also be appropriate to add a brief mention of Rodrigo Duterte who has received similar criticism. Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 11:11, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose - for the reason it was removed - This is not a political article but rather about psychology. Don't use such charged examples - this is an awful example of experienced wikipedia editors showing the apparent inability to care about WP:BLP and/or to follow WP:Policy and guidelines at all. Govindaharihari (talk) 06:36, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

Well, it's quite an interesting question, and there's a lot of things to consider here. One is WP:BLP; I have a some thoughts on that -- lengthy, so I'll collapse it to avoid overwhelming the discussion. Others may comment either inside or outside the collapsed section.

Where does BLP fit in here? (extended analysis and discussion)

Yes, in most cases, we'd be reluctant to bring a human person up as an example here in this kind of context. I'm a strong supporter of WP:BLP and for ten years I'm the breath of hell on editors trying to impinge on subjects who get caught under our wheels. It's something we have to keep vigilant about.

However, I'm also not in favor applying any rules with mindless rigidity. We are human beings with judgement and intelligence, not robots.

WP:BLP, like all rules, has a reason. The spirit of BLP was well expressed by Jimbo: "We are not here to make people sad". And and specifically the main reasons for having BLP is 1) to avoid damaging a person's reputation (as much as possible), and 2) to impinge on a person's privacy as little as possible and 3) to avoid hurting a person's feeling's (as much as possible). The rest of the rule is details on this theme. All this is well and good.

But really none of this applies here much. A few people who are very famous and powerful can be be approached a little more boldly -- and as a practical matter we do, in the interest of getting it right. When writing about Kim Jong-il and Vladimir Putin and so forth, we don't spend a lot of energy overly worrying about "wait, is this going to hurt his feelings?" It would be silly to worry about this too much for them, and being silly is not a good way to make an encyclopedia.

As a practical matter, nothing we do or say here can touch a President of the United States, bother him, worry him, damage his reputation, or anything of that sort. He's simply to big a public figure for anything we write here to matter, as a matter of practical fact. I don't see anyone honestly being like "Well, it's good material, and I would otherwise support including it, but it might hurt the President's feelings or damage his public reputation, so let's not".

It's arguable, because (what I consider) a Procrustian approach to WP:BLP is certainly defendable: "No, we shouldn't entertain considerations of circumstance like that, on slippery-slope grounds". I consider that a demonstration of an overly rigid mindset, but that's my opinion.

Then, it gets even more complicated because we can expect (and have already seen) people who don't want the material in for other reasons (such as "But I like President Trump!", which is not germane here) to throw up WP:BLP as an argument. This is normal and to beexpected. The person is question is a political figure, and some people are going to see this as a political fight, and in a political fight you use every weapon you can. But BLP not very applicable and is mainly just a distraction from the question at hand. For my part I wouldn't pay too much attention to it. Herostratus (talk) 15:23, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

Comment. As sourced, it looks like the article should include mention of how the Dunning-Kruger effect is discussed and used outside of the sciences. Restricting this article to only to the psychology/sociology doesn't seem neutral. Whether Trump is brought up at all is secondary. --Ronz (talk) 17:03, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

Phhhht. Just saw another citation regarding "Trump is the personification of Dunning-Kruger". However, I'm no longer sure its a good idea to add him as an example here. Rather, Dunning-Kruger should be brought up in the Trump article. That is, rather than this article saying "Want to understand Dunning-Kruger? Two words: Donald Trump" (which might be OK), it'd be more useful to over at Donald Trump to say "Want to understand Trump? one word: Dunning-Kruger". However, this would be a contentious addition (although certainly with many reliable notable sources), and probably not worth the heavy lifting required. Pretty much everybody knows Trump's deal by now anyway, including people in Khazakstan. Herostratus (talk) 21:26, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

I personally don't think that there is anything wrong with using Trump as a real world example of a psychological concept. As long as the article doesn't fixate on him or his policies. i think that using him OR anyone else who qualifies as "the embodiment of this psychological concept" would be excellent because it takes this concept and puts it in real world context. not just like reading a psych textbook it actually engages the reader and basically has them say "oh thats what they mean" or "thats what that refers to." granted trump is high profile and "fresh" but he is a stellar example of this effect. I'm sure there are others out there and if they are discovered then they should be included as well. As stated at the beginning of my comment using someone as an example isn't something that should be shamed but embraced PROVIDED the article remains neutral and unbiased and holds true to the point of this article which is defining "Dunning-Kruger." as for the person who mentioned putting dunning-kruger on trumps page then what about all the university pages where notable alumni are listed? if your argument were to hold true then each of those pages should be re worked and that content should only be on the individuals page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:204:D504:B856:59D5:2ECF:3393:21BA (talk) 23:08, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

Yes, you make a good point. Since most everyone knows Trump and what his deal is, and since he is a living embodiment of the Dunning-Kruger effect (and we have many good refs saying so), it would be service to the reader to say, basically, "to understand Dunning-Kruger effect, see Trump". It's just a plain fact, like saying that the Eiffel Tower was completed in 1889, and about as well documented by now. The problem is the political lifting required. The man is a well known politician with many supporters, some here, and they are the mind that the man is a modest genius or whatever (or anyway feel compelled to say so), because politics. It's probably not worth a big political fight over a minor issue like this. Herostratus (talk) 12:53, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

I have to agree with "I'm no longer sure its a good idea to add him as an example here. Rather, Dunning-Kruger should be brought up in the Trump article." Shoe-horning Trump into this article is a) politicized, and b) a "this is topical right now but will looked dated and petty later" problem. This article is about the concept, which applies very, very broadly. It does not need a list of people allegedly exhibiting the problem, and we would not include one in any other such article.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  20:58, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

examples with data

The table on page 3 of this paper ("Positive Results by Discipline") strikes me as an interesting and possibly important type of example of DK in the sciences (used in public decision making) https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/46388790/methods%20issues/Fanelli%202010%20positive%20results%20and%20hierarchy%20of%20science.pdf [edit: in case the link is lost, the title is: ‘‘Positive’’ Results Increase Down the Hierarchy of the Sciences -- Daniele Fanelli]

Could the p.3 table be incorporated into this article?

(It would also be interesting (self-referential) to see a really hard nosed analysis of the quality of the statistical methods & reproduceability of the experimental evidence for DK itself. Can this be settled as one of the truly strongly supported effects known in psychology?) DKEdwards (talk) 16:27, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

in the media

If we ever have an "in the media" section, the classic one to include is that town whereall the children are above average

And, XKCD today https://xkcd.com/1954/ YamaPlos talk 21:44, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

Sequel studies

... by examining the students' self-assessments of their intellectual skills in logical reasoning (inductive, deductive, abductive), English grammar, and personal sense of humor. After learning their self-assessment scores, the students were asked to estimate their ranks in the psychology class. The group of competent students underestimated their class ranks, while the group of incompetent students overestimated their ranks.

Shouldn't that be "after learning their scores"? Otherwise they would be examining the students' self-assessments of their self-assessment skills, no?

Also, the description is rather ambiguous: "competent" and "incompetent" are oposites, suggesting these two groups represent all the students (instead of the bottom and top quartiles), and "their class ranks" could be interpreted as referring to all the individual estimates instead of the average or median value for the group. Prevalence 18:44, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

The students take a self-assessment test, then that test is scored, and they are given that score (ie "self-assessment score"). Then they are asked to estimate where their score would fall in the range of scores of their fellow classmates. So yes, the students are indeed examining the self-assessments of their self-assessment skills, that's the whole point. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.199.5.24 (talk) 09:07, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

Shouldn't we also include Burson et. al. and Krueger and Muller's responses and alternative explanations? http://files.clps.brown.edu/jkrueger/journal_articles/krueger-2002-unskilled.pdf https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16448310 TAlphaM (talk) 12:18, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

People of high ability

The lead of the article now states: "On the other hand, people of high ability incorrectly assume that tasks that are easy for them are also easy for other people." I have not been able to source this and could not find it in the given source. Please help read the source. I have added and someone deleted the sentence but was reverted. A better source is by now not presented. Before I delete the sentence I ask, please provide a quotation in peer-reviewed research, for instance from what Dunning-Kruger have written about their findings, peer-reviewed research about the Dunning-Kruger findings or find out which page in the provided source this is written. --regards ^ツDyveldi ^{☯ prat} _{✉ post} 15:21, 16 September 2018 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, there are relatively few people here who are qualified to comment on your comment. But I guess that based on the effect described in this article, the least capable will probably be the most inclined to do so. That doesn't include me, of course. I'm a stable genius. 98.194.39.86 (talk) 09:34, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

You mean to say this is a search for the person with the highest ability. They have game-shows for that. Meanwhile I don't mind referring to a astrophysicist as someone of 'high ability'. Still I would contest that doesn't mean they can't be duped into committing i.e 10 years into a study of Dark Matter, when the schmoozel is based on a predecessor actually trying to avoid his blond haired daughter dating a black man. "What's dark matter's yo" (or doesn't).

In a nutshell

"I dont understand you therefore you must be stupid". Just granpa (talk) 09:46, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

What don’t you understand? As a grandparent myself, I’d like to help. Roxy, the dog. wooF 12:50, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

Another predecessor

"Like it or not, we have placed our destiny in the hands of the experts. A politician is, after all, a kind of expert, if self-styled. Even the fact that competent experts must serve under politicians of mediocre intelligence and little foresight is a problem that we are stuck with, because the experts themselves cannot agree on any major world issue. A logocracy of quarreling experts might be no better than the rule of the mediocrities to which we are subject. The declining intellectual quality of political leadership is the result of the growing complexity of the world. Since no one, be he endowed with the highest wisdom, can grasp it in its entirety, it is those who are least bothered by this who strive for power." (Stanisla Lem - One Human Minute, 1983 Heiko242 (talk) 19:23, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

The flip-side of this has gone missing

We used to have material in here on the flip-side of this, that while the ignorant are over-confident about the veracity of what they think they know, and tend to assume that their incomplete or false beliefs are verified fact and common knowledge, the actually expert have a strong tendency to assume that the field-specific information they have is common knowledge, and that complicated things they understand through professional or other training and experience are necessarily intuited or at least believed by those without that background.

I don't see any hint of this remaining in the article any longer. This seems problematic.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:59, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

It is gone because it is a different finding. Dunning presented a definition in 2011, see Dunning–Kruger_effect#Definition and quotes in the citations. The original research had an additional finding "More conclusive evidence came from Phase 2 of Study 3. Once top-quartile participants learned how poorly their peers had performed, they raised their self-appraisals to more accurate levels. We have argued that unskilled individuals suffer a dual burden: Not only do they perform poorly, but they fail to realize it. It thus appears that extremely competent individuals suffer a burden as well. Although they perform competently, they fail to realize that their proficiency is not necessarily shared by their peers." This is as Dunning & Kruger says two different "burdens". It is the burden of the unskilled that is named the Dunning-Kruger effect. One difference between these "burdens" is that the skilled are able to adjust their self-appraisals once they are made aware of their initial miscalculation. The burden of the unskilled are that they are not and this is quite characteristic of what came to be known as athe Dunning-Kruger effect. --regards ^ツDyveldi ^{☯ prat} _{✉ post} 21:32, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

We should cover this in at least a short section; the second, related effect (the inversion) isn't going to have a separate page, and was covered in the same original paper. Given that the Dunning–Kruger effect isn't something like a property of nature, but is a hypothesis published as a paper, we should be covering that paper more completely. The lack is misleading, both as to the conclusions reached and as to the nature of the conclusions – it implies a one-way and unbalanced conclusion about competence which isn't what the paper laid out. It's also just a matter of encyclopedic completeness more broadly. Readers are going to expect to find it here, because off-site treatment of the topic frequently includes both sides of it, and under the single name. If you put something like Dunning-Kruger effect -wikipedia experts into Google, you immediately get such results, right at the top, including in high-quality sources [2].  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:06, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the link. I have been aware for some time that it is all over the internet that there is supposed to be a flip side of the coin. I like the comparison to a coin, but will point out that the "inversion" is an entirely different coin. I was not aware of this having also entered scientific studies as well.

- Back in 2011 Dunning wrote an article about the original study in Advances in Experimental Social Psychology Volume 44, 2011, Pages 247-296 Chapter five - The Dunning–Kruger Effect: On Being Ignorant of One's Own Ignorance https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-385522-0.00005-6 where he clearly defined what The Dunning–Kruger Effect was.

- He does however also comment on the top performers. On page 271 part 5 The Errors of Top and Bottom Performers Compared page 270-275 he writes "In a phrase, top performers suffer from a false consensus effect (Ross, Greene, & House, 1977), thinking that other people are responding simi- larly to themselves much more than other people really are. " and "We have also conducted statistical analyses showing that the errors of top and bottom performers come from different sources focusing on those percentile estimates that participants provide when they judge how well they are doing relative to their peers. " (my underscore). The false consensus effect does have it's own article and does not have anything to do with the The Dunning–Kruger Effect. It is quite possible that the studies by Dunning should be mentioned there.

- Having said that I agree that the original findings should be commented on, especially since this mingling/mixture have existet for quite some time and is all over the net. I am however somewhat uncertain of how to do this without adding to the confusion, i. e. confusing it with The Dunning–Kruger Effect. It should be clear that we are talking about to different and unconnected phenomena. --regards ^ツDyveldi ^{☯ prat} _{✉ post} 11:00, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

I don't think we can strictly define what the DK effect is when neither Dunning nor the scientific community do. I believe the article should primarily cover overestimated low performance, but also underestimated high performance. In the latter case, I think it should link to the false consensus page.

"Illusory superiority" and particularly "false consensus" are little-known terms and thus should be described in simple English. Since this is the DK page, perhaps the simplest English possible. ;) WykiP (talk) 05:34, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

Ideas of how to phrase words in the False consensus effect-article should be discussed on the discussion page of that article. This is however not the simple English WP where they have a simplified version [[3]]. Wikipedia in English should aim to be reliable and accurate and sometimes that is not simple. --regards ^ツDyveldi ^{☯ prat} _{✉ post} 11:16, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

I'm talking about this article.

The lede's opening line says "the Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which people of low ability have illusory superiority". Since almost no-one knows what illusory superiority is, this is unnecessarily confusing and uninformative.

See the 2nd para of Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Lead_section#Provide_an_accessible_overview. WykiP (talk) 23:08, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

nonviable methodology

For such an effect to be observable and pinpointed, as said 'identified', there must be a constant of capacity without derivation. As standing, social capacity applied in occupation is determined on a continuum based construct of metaphysical nature. Should one interject upon such, a mean gradient maybe established with high and low capacities; surely applied as superior or inferior states. Still, it confers on the viability of the continuum's interjection, not on the outstanding continuum. Thus any rendition of a persons mean capacity is needfully ignorant, and hence one cannot ascertain a high or low capacity forthright. The so called effect, is thus flagged for deletion. Considering the field of psychology, it's a regular attempt to deride the status quo for economic benefits under the pretense of helping. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:44B8:213D:C100:9089:7B80:6960:6C35 (talk) 16:50, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

I disagree. -Roxy, the dog. wooF 17:18, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

The unsigned comment appears to be an attempt to sound erudite while saying almost nothing; the "holofernes effect". — Preceding unsigned comment added by TorontoGavin (talk • contribs) 03:18, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Dunning-Kruger, Like The Peter Principle, is an Academic Joke. This Article Fell For It.

This article is silly, a fine example of unwitting self-satire. The footnotes and cross-references to Confucius et al. are great fun.

Dunning-Kruger, like the Peter Principle of which it is clearly a descendant, is a faculty-club joke taken seriously by people who didn't get the joke. Both are perfectly true -- but only in the universe of bar-stool wisdom.

In both cases, the joke relies on a lunatic generalization about non-existent groups. There is no such thing, at least in social science, as "people of low ability." We are all better at some things and worse at others than our peers. For the Peter Principle, the analogue fakery is "level of ability." We are all at our limits in some things while perfectly capable of improving at others. Like all jokes, both contain a grain of truth. We do all deceive ourselves about our abilities and there are some fools in high places.

The article needs to be retracted, slightly rewritten, or perhaps moved to a new place under "Academic Humour."

David Lloyd-Jones (talk) 20:02, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

Sources please. --Ronz (talk) 20:08, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

Sources for what, exactly?

David Lloyd-Jones (talk) 20:14, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

Hello David Lloyd-Jones. Well, for example you are saying that "[the effect] is a faculty-club joke taken seriously by people who didn't get the joke". So what reliable, independent source are you citing to back up that this statement is true? Please be specific. Thanks --McSly (talk) 20:22, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

McSly,

I'm not saying the effect is a joke. I'm pointing out that the whole suggestion that there is "an effect" in the academic sense of the word is a joke. I would have thought it pretty obvious, though it is a sad fact that people do miss jokes sometimes. I allude to this in my heading.

Again: To say that somebody, or lots of people, are so stupid that they don't know how stupid they are constitutes a finding in the science of psychology is a joke at the expense of psychology, or people who take "findings" too seriously, and so on and so forth. It's not an effect, it's a light irony.

This is not the point of my post. My point is that treating a joke like an academic finding is an error. The anonymous author of this article has simply misunderstood a relatively common form of social intercourse, the academic in-joke. In this case psychologists are rather making fun of psychology. Mathematicians make fun of mathematics, and so it goes.

Bystanders sometimes don't get it.

The authority? If one is needed, I signed it. It's obvious to most people.

David Lloyd-Jones (talk) 00:19, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

That's great. So, talk pages are not forums. So unless your next edit here is a concrete, specific change proposal for the article (presented in the form of "Please change X to Y") backed up by reliable source(s), we are done here and we can close the discussion. --McSly (talk) 00:38, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

The subject being the point of a joke (which it probably is) doesn't make it any less real. --uKER (talk) 20:42, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

uKER,

Quite right. Or at least almost. I would not have said that it's the point of a joke. I would have put it as whole thing is a joke, but no matter. "He's so stupid he can't see how stupid he is" is cocktail chatter, not scientific observation. To call that, that it's chatter rather than science, The January 28th Lloyd-Jones Findings would be a weak joke of the same sort.

Certainly it's real cocktail chatter, but one would be wrong then to report it as a "finding" of any sort. The bloating of the word "Effect," not the fact of some people being stupid, is the joke.

David Lloyd-Jones (talk) 00:19, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

Do you have a proposal for changes to the article, and references to support those changes? --Ronz (talk) 00:32, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

Ronz (talk),

To repeat my proposal above, "The article needs to be retracted, slightly rewritten, or perhaps moved to a new place under "Academic Humour.""

David Lloyd-Jones (talk) 13:30, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

The point is, scientific research on the subject is not needed for it to be real either. Take a look at the Osborne effect, which I find to be quite similar in nature. It's just something that happens from time to time, a name has been given to it, and it's caught on widely enough to become an actual term people use. BTW, I recommend that you indent your messages using one or more semicolons at the beginning, and use <br> tags to do line breaks. --uKER (talk) 00:37, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

uKER,

I haven't tried your semi-colons idea, but colons have worked for me. I'm not sure, but I think you'll find that each of my replies is indented to match my interlocutor's post exactly at each point.

On Osborne, I think you are quite right, and I agree with your choice of a lower-case e for his "effect." In the Dunning-Kruger case, wouldn't you agree that capitalizing the E is a nice addition to the overall humour?

David Lloyd-Jones (talk) 13:30, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

Dunning has engaged on this page, and he seems to think its serious. He published a paper in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and his risking his academic career to put hoaxes in academic journals seems unlikely. And there's been a follow up by another researcher published in Current Directions in Psychological Science, and probably others.

Laurence Peter, in contrast, was a professor of education, and "The Peter Principle" was a mass-market book for laymen based (I think) on his observations rather than any rigorous study. See the difference?

Anyway, what the other editors are saying, User:David Lloyd-Jones, is that we don't and can't base our content on any person's personal observation that something is self-evident I'm sure you can figure out why, with a moment's reflection. What we would want, instead, is something like articles in notable publications describing Dunning-Kruger as you have, a joke. As well, if it is a joke, I image that that the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology would have made an embarassed statement to that effect, or that there might be some evidence of scandal around the issue, or something.

Whether in addition you are wrong on the merits doesn't much matter. It's sources we require. Herostratus (talk) 04:07, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

Herostratus (Herostratus),

I don't see Dunning's contribution here. Could you give me a pointer to it?

Thanks in advance.

I'm afraid I don't see the difference between Laurence Peter, Dunning and Kruger, C. Northcote Parkinson, or such more distant antecedents George Mikes or Peter Sellers. It's all exactly the same stuff, faculty club version.

All of this is rather a subset of the burgeoning crisis in social science, it seems to me. {https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/8/27/17761466/psychology-replication-crisis-nature-social-science

{https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-018-0399-z Evaluating the replicability of social science experiments in Nature and Science between 2010 and 2015}

As for your Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, don't you think there's some danger of them having Sokal'd themselves? {https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair}. I'm reminded that one of Social Text's defenders said that the editors were quite right to have published Sokal because his article was correct despite his claim of satirical intent. Then again, the soi disant defender might have been joking...

David Lloyd-Jones (talk) 13:30, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

I see nothing actionable here without blatant POV and OR violations. Far better sources are needed that directly support the arguments for these fundamental changes. Even then POV would require that the current pov be kept in some form, depending upon what new sources are offered.

If this continues, a block my be worth considering. --Ronz (talk) 17:22, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

Good grief, User:Ronz, that comment is so far out of line it's in Montana. Blocks are not handed out like candy. Blocks are for prolonged disruption of articles, given on talk page writing only for harassment, egregious and repeated insults, and like that. Not-shutting-up blocks are given out usually only after scores of dead-horse-beating usually running for prolonged periods. We want to be very certain we're not quashing legit discussion.

User:David Lloyd-Jones, I misspoke; Dunning never engaged here, I was thinking of something else.

But you've made your point, and it has apparently not gained any traction. Unless you can dig up some sources, it's probably not going to, so might as well roll your eyes and walk away. God knows I've done that enough times. Herostratus (talk) 01:29, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

The only humorous thing here is how well David Lloyd-Jones's comments illustrate that the Dunning-Kruger effect is no joke.AlsoWukai (talk) 23:31, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

Yeah. David, WP:LMGTFY: [4]. When journal after journal after journal takes it seriously and none of them are saying it's a joke, then WP takes it seriously and doesn't say it's a joke. The fact that a serious proposition can coincide in part with some humor you're familiar with doesn't magically transmogrify it into humor and not a serious proposition.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:20, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

"I don't see Dunning's contribution here. Could you give me a pointer to it?" I'm sorry the user here is just a troll, it is not necessary to engage further with his trolling. He posits things because they're "obvious" and specifically responds to demands for citation by saying "I said it". He is an example of the Dunning-Kruger effect, falsely believing his contributions here are clever. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TorontoGavin (talk • contribs) 04:20, 16 April 2019 (UTC)