Thursday, April 17, 2008

You Are Here



They think they're doing excellent work. But they're not. In fact, they suck. And the more they suck, the more they overestimate their performance.

We all know people who do this. They may be leaders of countries, heads of large religious denominations, or prominent business people. But despite their protestations of glorious self-confidence, they are incompetent boobs.



He's been eating paint chips again.

This phenomenon now called the Dunning-Kruger effect. (Another way of putting it would be to simply refer to it as "neoconservatism.")

The tendency that people have to overrate their abilities fascinates Cornell University social psychologist David Dunning, PhD. "People overestimate themselves," he says, "but more than that, they really seem to believe it. I've been trying to figure out where that certainty of belief comes from."

Dunning is doing that through a series of manipulated studies, mostly with students at Cornell. He's finding that the least competent performers inflate their abilities the most; that the reason for the overinflation seems to be ignorance, not arrogance; and that chronic self-beliefs, however inaccurate, underlie both people's over and underestimations of how well they're doing.




Here we are. Thanks.

2 comments:

wstachour said...

"This phenomenon now called the Dunning-Kruger effect. (Another way of putting it would be to simply refer to it as "neoconservatism.")"

Ha! This is a kinder definition of the term than I could probably muster.

Ruth said...

This is an excellent accounting for the bubble existence. All contradiction must be stilled. The worst administration ever will try hanging on until the end.