Dunning–Kruger effect

The Dunning–Kruger effect is a bias in thinking where a person is unaware of how badly they understand a subject. The person does not understand that they are failing. They mistakenly think that they are doing as well as "average" or even "above average".

Overview

It is a psychological effect in which people don't realize their level of knowledge or ability in a subject. People who know little about a subject will think that they know more than they actually know. People of low ability may not have enough intelligence to fully grasp how complicated something can be, causing them to overestimate their knowledge or ability. This can cause them to underestimate the intelligence of a high-ability person who claims something is complicated when they falsely believe they understand it fully. This effect was shown in an experiment that was done by Justin Kruger and David Dunning at Cornell University. 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. 

 Analysis 
To study this effect, scientists commonly test a group of people ranging in aptitude for a certain task and compare their results with what they think they got. Commonly the results of these studies show that those with the least aptitude (the bottom 25%) will believe themselves to have gotten a much higher score.

Critique

The investigators said,

In 2000, Dunning and Kruger were awarded the Ig Nobel Prize in the field of psychology for their study.

Related pages

 Arrogance
 Narcissism
 Confidence
 Megalomania

 References 

Category:Cognition
Category:Experiments