You Cannot Know What You Do Not Know: Dunning-Kruger Effect

People with a low ability at a task will overestimate their ability; this is called the Dunning-Kruger effect. (Kruger & Dunning, 1999) For example, ask at a birthday party, people if they can drive better than the average person, and you will find that most people will say yes, which is impossible because most people will drive like average people. Dunning and Kruger found that people who perform in the lowest quarter percentile on humor, grammar, and logic tests grossly overestimate their performance and ability. The test scores were in the 12th percentile (which means that 88% of the people would perform better than they did). If they had to estimate how well they did themselves, they would estimate their score in the 62nd percentile (which means that only 38% of the people would perform better than they did).

The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.

Bertrand Russell

This miscalibration between what participants know and what they think they know has two causes: (1) lack of knowledge and (2) lack of metacognitive skills (the ability to step back and examine oneself objectively). Improving their skills and improving their metacognitive competence helped the participants to recognize their limitations. (Kruger & Dunning, 1999) Interestingly, there are different causes for errors about our capability in people with low ability and high ability. The error in people with low ability is caused by an error about the self, while the error in people with high ability is caused by an error about others. Those who are the least skilled are also the most likely to overestimate their abilities. It is hard for people to recognize their inability. Without meta-cognition or self-awareness, people cannot objectively evaluate their level of competence.

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.

Dunning and Kruger

People are optimistic about their own abilities. This optimism is abused in tv-series like The Voice; of course, there is talent, but there are also people who are allowed just for our entertainment. The contestant thinks he is the new Pavarotti (and usually the mother thinks so too), but his singing does not reach a singing cat’s level. Another problem with the optimism about our abilities is that we realize that the norm must be maintained. We do this by considering that everyone else is much worse. Being clueless about your own abilities is one thing; misjudging other’s abilities is more serious. We are not just bad at something, but we are bad and do not possess the tools to assess our own performance. These are two different skills: action and self-assessment. Sometimes the two skill sets overlap so well that you have to be good at something to know that you are good at it. In other cases, the two skill sets don’t overlap.

The presence of the Dunning-Kruger effect, as it’s been come to be called, is that one should pause to worry about one’s own certainty, not the certainty of others.

Dunning

Unknowingly Incapable

The Dunning Kruger effect shows similarities with the first stage in learning, unconscious incompetence. The following steps in learning are conscious incompetence, conscious competence, and finally unconscious competence. The first stage is when we don’t yet know what we don’t know, we just have no idea. We don’t know the degree of your incompetence, and we don’t yet feel the need to learn. Ignorance is bliss. The amount of time that we spend in this stage depends on how strong the stimulus is for us to learn. Until we recognize the value of knowledge or skill, we will not move past this stage and make the next step to wanting to learn. There are many potential skills or lessons in life that we face, and we will not pass this stage.

If you’re incompetent, you can’t know you’re incompetent … The skills you need to produce a right answer are exactly the skills you need to recognize what a right answer is.

Dunning

That is alright because we cannot learn everything. Learning something needs to add some type of value to our life or else we are not going to want to put our brainpower into the process. There has to be a goal or an intended outcome in mind in order to get past stage one. The next stage is conscious incompetence. In this stage, we realize there is a lot ahead of us. We can feel inadequate compared to the people around us, and maybe this is an aspect of the Dunning-Kruger because it does not feel good to feel insufficient. Most people do not like to feel weak as they face a deficit in knowledge.

Is The Dunning-Kruger Effect Universal?

There are differences, between cultures, between sexes, and between different levels of knowledge. Smart people underestimate their knowledge. Paradoxically, the more domain expertise they acquire, the less confidence they have. This is because experts have greater metacognition on their particular subject (they know what they don’t know) and are able to see complexities that a person with only a little knowledge in that area would overlook. As a result, they tend to be more aware of any knowledge gaps or weaknesses they have. Another reason is that competent students tend to underestimate their own competence because they erroneously presume that tasks easy for them to perform are also easy for other people to perform.

To know what you know and what you do not know, that is true knowledge.

Confucius

One study shows that the Dunning-Kruger effect is not restricted to Western culture. This study was performed on Emirati college students at different levels of performance. The study found the same overconfidence patterns consistent with the Dunning-Kruger effect. (Coutinho, Thomas, Fredricks-Lowman, & Verlinden Bondaruk, 2020) Studies of Japanese people do suggest that cultural forces have a role in the occurrence of the effect. A study indicated that Japanese people tend to underestimate their abilities and to see underachievement (failure) as an opportunity to improve their abilities at a given task, thereby increasing their value to the social group. North Americans who fail on a task persist less on a follow-up task than those who succeed. In contrast, Japanese who failed persist more than those who succeed. The Japanese pattern is evidence for a self-improving orientation; failures highlight where corrective efforts are needed. Japanese who fail also enhance the importance of the task compared with those who succeed, whereas North Americans do the opposite. (Heine, et al., 2001)

For most people, the following will not be a big surprise; men tend to overestimate their abilities or knowledge more than women. In a study, it was verified that women on average self-assessed more accurately than men, and did so across all ethnic groups that had sufficient representation in the researchers’ database. (Watson, et al., 2019)

How to Avoid the Dunning Kruger Effect

The first thing is to get aware of the Dunning-Kruger effect, and you are working on that by reading this article! Furthermore, you can honestly and routinely question your knowledge and the conclusions you draw. You can be your own devil’s advocate by challenging yourself to probe how you might possibly be wrong. This is not always easy, and we can also be hindered by cognitive dissonance. You can also escape the trap by seeking others whose expertise can help you to uncover your blind spots. Continuing to study a specific subject will also bring your capacity into a clearer focus.

A question that sometimes drives me crazy: am I or are the others crazy?

Albert Einstein

Did you ever hear similar criticisms from different people in your life and ignored or discounted them? That could be another giveaway that you suffer from the Dunning-Kruger effect. Take a look at those areas in your life where you feel 100 percent confident. Acknowledge the possibility that you might not always be right, and you might need to acquire knowledge or practice more. Question what you know and pay attention to those who have different viewpoints. Seek feedback from people you can trust who you know are highly skilled in your area of interest. Be open to constructive criticism and resist the impulse to become defensive. Don’t pretend to know something you don’t. Make it a priority to continue learning and growing. Stay curious, and try not to assume things but think critically.

Interesting links:

How You Keep Fooling Yourself: Cognitive Dissonance

Be More Curious!

Critical Thinking: Your Weapon Against News Bias And Propaganda

References

Coutinho, M., Thomas, J., Fredricks-Lowman, I., & Verlinden Bondaruk, M. (2020). The Dunning-Kruger Effect in Emirati College Students:. International Journal of Psychology and Psychological Therapy, 20(1), 29–36.

Heine, S., Lehman, D., Leung, E., Kitayama, S., Takata, T., & Matsumoto, H. (2001). Divergent Consequences of Success and Failure in Japan and North America: An Investigation of Self-improving Motivations and Malleable Selves. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81(4), 599–615. doi:10.1037/0022–3514.81.4.599

Kruger, J., & Dunning, D. (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), 1121–1134. doi:doi.org/10.1037/0022–3514.77.6.1121

Watson, R., Nuhfer, E., Moon, K., Fleisher, S., Walter, P., Wirth, K., . . . Gaze, E. (2019). Paired Measures of Competence and Confidence Illuminate Impacts of Privilege on College Students. Numeracy, 12(2), Article 2. doi:10.5038/1936–4660.12.2.2

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