Dunning–Kruger effect
A friend of mine just pointed me to a great read about a great psychological discovery. It’s called the “Dunning-Kruger effect”. You can find a Wikipedia entry here and you can download the PDF format of the study here. It’s not that new but many people didn’t hear about it.
It can be summarized in the following quote:
“The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.” – Bertrand Russell
In brief the study found out the ignorant people tend to be more confident in themselves while intelligent people under-estimate their capabilities. I think this makes sense since when you learn and know more about something you realise how ignorant you are.
Here is a list of things discovered in the study :
- Incompetent individuals tend to overestimate their own level of skill.
- Incompetent individuals fail to recognize genuine skill in others.
- Incompetent individuals fail to recognize the extremity of their inadequacy.
- If they can be trained to substantially improve their own skill level, these individuals can recognize and acknowledge their own previous lack of skill.
It’s a good read and i am sure anyone will identify people who he/she worked with that fit into that criteria.
