The Kruger - Dunning Effect or Why the world is the way it is?

“In the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.” — Bertrand Russell

I first noticed this 'effect' a few years ago when engaging students in a peer/self assessment process. It was very marked that clearly weaker individuals seemed to consistently rate themselves very highly, 80-90% out of a hundred - and clearly stronger people would rate themselves at about 40-50%.

At first I thought that the weaker students were being deliberately obtuse or simply trying to obstruct the assessment process - but no - they actually thought that their work deserved the 80-90% they had assigned themselves - even to the extent that they couldn't understand how lecturers and their peers rated them much lower.

On the other hand, stronger students would tend to be much more critical of themselves - the very critical faculties required to allow them to produce quality work was also being used by the students themselves to be too harsh on their own perception of their own skills.

The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which "people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it."

The unskilled therefore suffer from illusory superiority, rating their own ability as above average, much higher than in actuality; by contrast, the highly skilled underrate their abilities, suffering from illusory inferiority. This leads to a perverse result where less competent people will rate their own ability higher than more competent people. It also explains why actual competence may weaken self-confidence because competent individuals falsely assume that others have an equivalent understanding. "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."

The phenomenon was demonstrated in a series of experiments performed by Justin Kruger and David Dunning, then both of Cornell University. Their results were published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in December 1999. However, the phenomenon had been assumed by many philosophers for nearly a century prior to Kruger and Dunning's study (see Russell quote above).

Kruger and Dunning noted a number of previous studies which tend to suggest that in skills as diverse as reading comprehension, operating a motor vehicle, and playing chess or tennis, "ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge" (as Charles Darwin put it). Kruger and Dunning hypothesized that with a typical skill which humans may possess in greater or lesser degree:

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.

The authors draw an analogy with anosognosia—a condition in which a person who suffers a physical disability due to brain injury seems unaware of or denies the existence of the disability. This may include unawareness of quite dramatic impairments, such as blindness or paralysis.

Kruger and Dunning won Ig Nobel Prizes in Psychology in 2000 with their report, "Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments".

This is so true it's sad but knowing that it is true has, unfortunately made me none the wiser...

Start with a cage containing five monkeys.

Inside the cage, hang a banana on a string and place a set of stairs under it. Before long, a monkey will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the other monkeys with cold water.

After a while, another monkey makes an attempt with the same result - all the other monkeys are sprayed with cold water. Pretty soon, when another monkey tries to climb the stairs, the other monkeys will try to prevent it.

Now, put away the cold water. Remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new monkey sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs. To his surprise and horror, all of the other monkeys attack him.

After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs, he will be assaulted.

Next, remove another of the original five monkeys and replace it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm! Likewise, replace a third original monkey with a new one, then a fourth, then the fifth. Every time the newest monkey takes to the stairs, he is attacked.

Most of the monkeys that are beating him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs or why they are participating in the beating of the newest monkey.

After replacing all the original monkeys, none of the remaining monkeys have ever been sprayed with cold water. Nevertheless, no monkey ever again approaches the stairs to try for the banana. Why not? Because as far as they know that's the way it's always been done round here.

And that, my friends, is how company policies are made.

Window device a bit much for this drawing of a yogi but...

Indian textile worker