What is the Dunning Kruger Effect & Is It Even REAL?

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ABOUT: Rebecca Watson is the founder of the Skepchick Network, a collection of sites focused on science and critical thinking. She has written for outlets such as Slate, Popular Science, and the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. She's also the host of Quiz-o-tron, a rowdy, live quiz show that pits scientists against comedians. Asteroid 153289 Rebeccawatson is named after her (her real name being 153289).

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[IrocZIV]

In my experience "The more you know, the more you realize that you don't know" seems very real. I know I'm guilty of it.
I don't think I've ever known exactly what the Dunning Kruger Effect technically was, but I've never thought of it as being used to call someone dumb, just ignorant to the point of overconfidence.

[nccm]

"...At least from now on." I like how Rebecca can even admit the temptation of the easy retort.

[pillmuncher]

The internet tells me that Thomas Huxley once stated: Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.

I think one of the points of this quote is this: If you know how much there is to learn about the subject you're an expert in, you realize how much there is to learn about any subject and you won't be overconfident when talking about the things you're not an expert in.

[Blackmetal]

You mentioned a niche thing I know a lot about in passing that you actually were slightly inaccurate on.

Anosognosia is a general term for unawareness of illness. What you were referring to was anosognsia with hemiplegia (unawarenss of paralysis on one side of the body), which is quite a rare disorder for stroke patients, and typically is only present in the first few weeks or months following a stroke. Importantly, this is not an unawareness of why they are paralyzed, but rather an unawareness THAT they are paralyzed. However, the phenomenon of anosognosia was first described and studied in a sample hemiplegic stroke patients in the early 1900's, so it is commonly assumed that anosognsia is specifically related to paralysis.

This can also apply to other disorders such as schizophrenia, or certain types of aphasia (disorders of speech as a result of brain injury).

[NarffetWerlz]

Ah. My introduction to the Dunning-Kreuger effect was an article that opened with an anecdote about a man who tried robbing a bank while covered in lemon juice after having seen in a WW2 documentary that the allies sometimes used lemon juice as 'invisible ink'. That tainted my perspective from the start and I've probably misused it in all the ways demonstrated.

[tely]

If you doubt the Dunning Kruger Effect, you have not dealt with corporate management.

[imacds]

I know everything there is to know about the Dawning-Krooger effect, as I've heard it mentioned in conversation several times!

[medes]

I remember someone on reddit trying to correct someone about Dunning-Kruger and how it's not as concrete as people assume because the conceit of it as most people understand it makes intuitive sense and that it might not even exist - and the person they were correcting came back with "pretending Dunning-Kruger doesn't exist is peak Dunning-Kruger, you just played yourself"

It's got to the point where what the effect describes is enough, it doesn't actually matter if its real or not to the people using it as a dunk. You know what they mean by it and that's enough.

[ltlbuddha]

In my experience, it is the overconfidence that is the issue, but that can happen at any level of intelligence and education. Even subject matter experts are susceptible to making mistakes because they are overconfident in their knowledge or abilities.

[MilkmanOfTheApocalypse]

You can take "Dunning-Krugerrands" as an alternate name for Bitcoins when you pry it from my cold, dead mouth.

[bencoomer]

Maybe it's because I dealt with many officers who had just a bit of knowledge and yet were put in charge of things, but I'm pretty sure the "just enough knowledge to be really REALLY wrong about things and not realize it" is real.

But as you mentioned, it might be more "they're a$$holes" than necessarily a psychological thing...

[zarprime]

I've always thought DKE was exemplified by people who've never tried to become skilled at anything seeing someone highly skilled perform their skill seemingly effortlessly and assuming that the skill must be trivial to acquire.

Conversely, a person who has become proficient at a skill or learned a lot about a very narrow topic at least once generally can recognize the effort required by someone skilled in an entirely different area.

[ragnarockerbunny]

I have on many occasion ran off at the mouth confident that I understood something when my knowledge was very incomplete. I think in the general sense it is true that the more you know about something, the greater your understanding is about how much you don't know about something. Sometimes we're all a little loud and wrong and you just gotta eat that slice of humble pie when you find out. This has happened to me a lot less when I decided to talk less and listen more, lol.

[IFStravinsky]

The fact that the kids were psych students is the giveaway. There is nothing more annoying than a psychology undergrad.

[Wiz]

I used to coach a video game 2-3 years back and during casual conversations with my students I remember mentioning the dunning kruger a few times in order to explain why certain players are so overconfident when they are objectively wrong when looking at the bigger picture. I cant fully explain it but I love the dunning kruger effect and I am interested to see new research

[colonelweird]

I don't understand all of the scientific mumbo-jumbo in this video, but I do know the Dunning Kruger effect when I see it. I'm a natural at these things.

But seriously, to me the most interesting thing about this discussion is how it seems like the idea of the DK effect is a modern adaptation of the old Socrates line about the wisdom of knowing you know nothing. That may not have been the intent when that first paper was written, but it's surely one reason the idea has been so attractive to so many people for so long. It's fascinating to see ideas that have been around for centuries continue to inspire discussion, investigation, adaptation, and so on. It's as if something about it reflects one of the deep paradoxes of being human -- our strange relationship to the ideas of knowledge and ignorance.

[the_purple_mage]

Hi Rebecca! Would you consider highlighting the sections you're quoting from or paraphrasing when you show a page of text? Thank you :)

[cronuck]

My takeaway on DK effect is that is applies to all of us in fields we don't know. It is a reminder to check my assumptions when I think "how hard can it be?". Pointed outward, it becomes just another way to call someone stupid; pointed inward and it becomes a useful corrective.

[mmo]

Rebecca, I used to watch a lot of skeptic/atheist talk shows, and I have to say out of all the people I've watched, you've contributed the most to my skepticism and have gotten me to drop a lot of old assumptions and beliefs. Thanks.

[TheSnowLeopard]

The perpetuation of the idea of the Dunning Kruger effect, shows people trust experts when it confirms their own cognitive biases. Even when those experts are wrong.