Thoughts on the Dunning-Kruger effect

MRC_Hans

Penultimate Amazing
MRC_Hans
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Recently, someone linked to info on the Dunning–Kruger effect

I hadn't seen a formal description before, but I think we see this a lot, and it gave me a new understanding of many posters, here and elsewhere.

In my view, a synopsis of the D-K effect is:

A person has an unrealistic estimation of own competency on some subject, which is caused by ignorance(or lack of ability) of that subject.

Example: Person considers himself a good singer, because he is unable to hear just how horribly off-key he is singing.

I suppose most, if not all, of us have some area where we are slightly affected by this, however, a lot of posters here, who get classified in the 'woo' or 'crackpot' category suffer from this effect.

Some of these are quite rational people, and once they find themselves in the company of more knowledgeable people, they often realize theiy own lackings, and listen to sense. The next step is that they abandon their faulty ideas and either learn about the subject, or just accept that this is outside their competence.

Others, especially if their D-K is paired with a touch of megalomania, persecution complex, and/or some form of fanatism, will not progress. They will instead dig themselves deeper into their conviction of being the only sensible person around, elaborate on their dream-world, and generally be a lost cause.

However, I think that understanding this mechanism will help us to help others, not to mention, at times, ourselves. ;)

Hans
 
Hans, do you like your new avatar? Touch of DK there, maybe? :D

(Petition to bring back the old Hans.)
 
I must shape up a bit. Here I start what I think is a perfectly serious thread, and after (at most) two posts, it goes off to never-never land.

*sigh*

Why is it that only the trolls and the cranks get fifty page threads?

Hans :dio:
 
I'd have to say, in my life, I always suspect my presumptions and I have a painful awareness of just how little I know. This sense has made it very hard for me to show confidence and that has real downsides.

For example, I don't earn what others doing the same thing earn. I "feel" bad quoting a lot of money in confusing ways; which is what I have seen others do. They inflate their services to make them sound rarified and thus worth the high costs. (Design, advertising agencies and web design.)

The same thing happens with egos and reputations. People polish everything; their resumes, their pasts, their qualifications, their deeds. Where does it end? When you try to be humble and accurate about your limitations, you are immediately at a disadvantage because your are surrounded by sharks!

So... maybe a bit of DK is good for you? Maybe the cock-sure feeling that you are a pro, gets you past many hurdles that you would otherwise stop and study and think about?
 
MRC_Hans said:
However, since my old avatar was me .......
Nevermind....
Click to expand...

:blush: I get it. I get it. I'm slow, but I get it.

I still say - bring the old, ancient, decrepit, sell-by in the rear-view mirror, long-beard, mummified Hans back! Stat! What is that blue horror with red tips for ears? :p
 
MRC_Hans said:
Recently, someone linked to info on the Dunning–Kruger effect

I hadn't seen a formal description before, but I think we see this a lot, and it gave me a new understanding of many posters, here and elsewhere.
Click to expand...

It's not a new observation (see my sig), but it is useful that it has been quantified and named. Reading the page now, I see there's an update since I last read it, saying that the effect seems to be greatest with Americans, and in some cultures the reverse effect is noticed.

It's also rather depressing, as it suggests that simply explaining the problem to sufferers of the effect may not work, as they won't understand that they are affected by it.
 
zooterkin said:
It's not a new observation (see my sig), but it is useful that it has been quantified and named. Reading the page now, I see there's an update since I last read it, saying that the effect seems to be greatest with Americans, and in some culture the reverse is true...
Click to expand...
There's a [citation needed] there.
Never trust Wikipedia unless there's a citation to a peer reviewed study or you might end up in the bottom quartile.
 
Jeff Corey said:
There's a [citation needed] there.
Never trust Wikipedia unless there's a citation to a peer reviewed study or you might end up in the bottom quartile.
Click to expand...

You'll note that I didn't say I believed it. :)

Just curious, why did you reword the end of what you quoted me as saying?
 
MRC_Hans said:
Recently, someone linked to info on the Dunning–Kruger effect

I hadn't seen a formal description before, but I think we see this a lot, and it gave me a new understanding of many posters, here and elsewhere.

In my view, a synopsis of the D-K effect is:

A person has an unrealistic estimation of own competency on some subject, which is caused by ignorance(or lack of ability) of that subject.

Example: Person considers himself a good singer, because he is unable to hear just how horribly off-key he is singing.

I suppose most, if not all, of us have some area where we are slightly affected by this, however, a lot of posters here, who get classified in the 'woo' or 'crackpot' category suffer from this effect.

Some of these are quite rational people, and once they find themselves in the company of more knowledgeable people, they often realize theiy own lackings, and listen to sense. The next step is that they abandon their faulty ideas and either learn about the subject, or just accept that this is outside their competence.

Others, especially if their D-K is paired with a touch of megalomania, persecution complex, and/or some form of fanatism, will not progress. They will instead dig themselves deeper into their conviction of being the only sensible person around, elaborate on their dream-world, and generally be a lost cause.

However, I think that understanding this mechanism will help us to help others, not to mention, at times, ourselves. ;)

Hans
Click to expand...

I thought it went a bit further than being rubbish at something into "so rubbish that they cannot appraise their own performance and so greatly over-estimate their ability"

I wrote this with my thumbs
 
MRC_Hans said:
Recently, someone linked to info on the Dunning–Kruger effect

I hadn't seen a formal description before, but I think we see this a lot, and it gave me a new understanding of many posters, here and elsewhere.

In my view, a synopsis of the D-K effect is:

A person has an unrealistic estimation of own competency on some subject, which is caused by ignorance(or lack of ability) of that subject.

Example: Person considers himself a good singer, because he is unable to hear just how horribly off-key he is singing.

I suppose most, if not all, of us have some area where we are slightly affected by this, however, a lot of posters here, who get classified in the 'woo' or 'crackpot' category suffer from this effect.

Some of these are quite rational people, and once they find themselves in the company of more knowledgeable people, they often realize theiy own lackings, and listen to sense. The next step is that they abandon their faulty ideas and either learn about the subject, or just accept that this is outside their competence.

Others, especially if their D-K is paired with a touch of megalomania, persecution complex, and/or some form of fanatism, will not progress. They will instead dig themselves deeper into their conviction of being the only sensible person around, elaborate on their dream-world, and generally be a lost cause.

However, I think that understanding this mechanism will help us to help others, not to mention, at times, ourselves. ;)

Hans
Click to expand...

A good dose of humility should cure it, along with a guiding hand.
 
zooterkin said:
It's also rather depressing, as it suggests that simply explaining the problem to sufferers of the effect may not work, as they won't understand that they are affected by it.
Click to expand...
Because they are not suffering from DK effect! It is a source of enjoyment, and you are trying to take it away from them :)
 
Filippo Lippi said:
I thought it went a bit further than being rubbish at something into "so rubbish that they cannot appraise their own performance and so greatly over-estimate their ability"
Click to expand...

I think the important point is that, as with many similar things, it's not a hard and fast "either you suffer from this or you don't", but actually a continuum. The worse you are at something, the more you'll tend to overestimate your ability. People who aren't absolutely terrible still overestimate their ability to some extent, just not so much as the people who are that bad.
 
Donn said:
:blush: I get it. I get it. I'm slow, but I get it.

I still say - bring the old, ancient, decrepit, sell-by in the rear-view mirror, long-beard, mummified Hans back! Stat! What is that blue horror with red tips for ears? :p
Click to expand...

Actually, it's a glass sculpture, in a wonderful glass art museum we have in Denmark. If you are ever here and get near the town Ebeltoft, it is a must see.

http://www.glasmuseet.dk/index.php?id=996

Hans
 
Donn said:
The same thing happens with egos and reputations. People polish everything; their resumes, their pasts, their qualifications, their deeds. Where does it end? When you try to be humble and accurate about your limitations, you are immediately at a disadvantage because your are surrounded by sharks!

So... maybe a bit of DK is good for you? Maybe the cock-sure feeling that you are a pro, gets you past many hurdles that you would otherwise stop and study and think about?
Click to expand...

Sure! DK, in itself, is not a pathology, it is a behavioural pattern. This makes it very likely that it has some evolutionary advantage. I think it is really related to the thing that make many animals ignore things they don't understand: If you don't know the right way to react, it is better to do nothing and hope for the best.

Or small dogs that bark their little heads off; in their own mind they are the largest predator on the bloc, and the others leave them alone, because .... who knows?

Hans
 
zooterkin said:
It's not a new observation (see my sig), but it is useful that it has been quantified and named. Reading the page now, I see there's an update since I last read it, saying that the effect seems to be greatest with Americans, and in some cultures the reverse effect is noticed.

It's also rather depressing, as it suggests that simply explaining the problem to sufferers of the effect may not work, as they won't understand that they are affected by it.
Click to expand...

Well, rational sufferers, when encountering true superiority, supposedly realize their incompetence, and either build their competence or live with their lackings.

It is not a coincidence that I mentioned singing in the OP; when I was a kid, I didn't think I was a bad singer at all, as long as I knew the song well. ... Then I got a tape recorder ....:boggled: :eye-poppi :covereyes :boxedin: :o

..... Now I only sing when I'm alone, or drunk. :rolleyes:

Hans
 
Mark6 said:
Because they are not suffering from DK effect! It is a source of enjoyment, and you are trying to take it away from them :)
Click to expand...

Yes, for some it is like that. They revere in their imagined superiority, and every suggestion that they might be wrong only confirms their faith that everybody else is a fool.

Luckily we also see the others, the ones who answer along the lines of:

"I see ... Didn't realize that ... OK, I may need to study this a bit. Thank you for the information."

.... OK, people are human, so some stomp off angrily, but later come back and talk sense. I'm OK with that; it took me some time to learn to be wrong with some grace.

Hans
 
Cuddles said:
I think the important point is that, as with many similar things, it's not a hard and fast "either you suffer from this or you don't", but actually a continuum. The worse you are at something, the more you'll tend to overestimate your ability. People who aren't absolutely terrible still overestimate their ability to some extent, just not so much as the people who are that bad.
Click to expand...

That makes sense, yes.

Hans
 
John Cleese gives a nice explanation on a video I can't link to from my phone

I wrote this with my thumbs
 
Donn said:
:blush: I get it. I get it. I'm slow, but I get it.

I still say - bring the old, ancient, decrepit, sell-by in the rear-view mirror, long-beard, mummified Hans back! Stat! What is that blue horror with red tips for ears? :p
Click to expand...

OK, OK; better now?

Hans
 
My first introduction to the concept was on the Brady Bunch. The episode where Greg and Marsha are fighting over who gets to stay in the attic, and Peter and Bobby are getting tired of carrying Greg's mattress up and down the stairs.

Bobby asks, "Why do girls dumb things and not realize that they are dumb?"
Peter: "Because they are dumb."

That's the DK effect in a nutshell, although it doesn't just apply to girls.
 
MRC_Hans said:
Or small dogs that bark their little heads off; in their own mind they are the largest predator on the bloc, and the others leave them alone, because .... who knows?
Click to expand...


Well, because as far as they are concerned, a dog is a dog. And if a dog can convince itself that it is the baddest dog on the block, it will probably have the body language to convince the others.
 
I know way more about the effect than those idiots Dunning and/or Kruger ever did and am thus competent to say that I don't suffer from it.
 
Mojo said:
Well, because as far as they are concerned, a dog is a dog. And if a dog can convince itself that it is the baddest dog on the block, it will probably have the body language to convince the others.
Click to expand...
Yes, and that works in many situations in life. Certainly sales; Even the most careful customer will not examine every offer to the last detail, so the salesman who can sound most convincing has an advantage.

About dogs in particular: Well since only an evolutionary moment ago, a dog was indeed a dog, so it is not strange that they still think so. Then it is mostly small dogs that are affected; I had a Newfoundland dog, and he certainly knew he was BIG.

Hans
 
Hans, understanding the DK effect is not going to help the cause for changing minds. It is a brilliant summary of the observed incorrect perceptions people have for themself or for something they do. However, like everything else, talking sense into them and explaining "The reason you think this way is the DK effect. You should look it up and think critically about yourself." is not going to get them to change their mind.

Consider little man syndrome. Small non athletic boy who is a complete mouthpiece and will fight you, your friends and your dad with both hands tied behind his back. He has no formal training in any martial art, no fighting experience and the only thing that fuels his deluded sense of superiority is his complete insecurity. He believes he possesses two properties within himself that are almost non-existant.

1: Fighting ability / Physical strength
2: Courage / Fearlessness

Fighting ability despite an utter lack of it. The sense of fearlessness and courage despite the sole reason he acts this way is because he harbors the complete opposite of these concepts within himself; fear and cowardice.

George St-Pierre or Anderson Silva on the other hand can have years of fighting experience, discipline, conditioning and be in incredible physical shape. But being someone who has the knowledge of what it actually takes to fight, they understand their limitations far better than the small boy since they constantly find themselves pushed to their limit. They also have the pride and sense of worth in their accomplishments of what they have done through hardship which can fuel their cognitive process to humbly conclude that even they are not invincible. Second to none perhaps, but still mortal.

Telling the boy he is weak is not enough, no graphs or data will ever speak in his language. it is only when he is squarely knocked out by a superior opponent does he learn his place.

Only when this happens can delusion start its reversal process. They need to absorb new concepts that are objectively real to them before they can start working their way out of this DK effect.

Perceptions:
I cannot be beaten.
I am the best.
I am the strongest.
I am brave.

Now insert the one real fact:
I challenged a superior opponent and was utterly defeated.

How can I not be beaten when I clearly have lost? Can I be the strongest when you are clearly stronger? How can I be brave if all I felt being pummeled was fear and humiliation?
Just one fact that is demonstrably real to them is all it can take in some cases to turn this process right around. Sometimes it will take many instances for someone to change their perception. Maybe some need to fight a thousand times before they see what this boy has seen. But it seems the key to this understanding relies on the self discovery of something apparant and accurately true that contradicts your perceptions.

Unfortunately, this requires at least a shred of self analysis and honest inquiry which some people have gone beyond a point where I do not think recovery is even possible. At least not without a tremendous amount of trial and tribulation that would be nothing short of a miracle. Circular reasoning is probably a harder one to break out of, and the rain man who dances and shakes sticks to change a planetary weather system is going to need a hard knock of reason before he can consider what he is doing to be demonstrably wrong.
 
Interestingly we discovered this a long time ago during job interviews.

One of the things that I always ask people to do is rate their own competence in a subject. Invariably those with expert level knowledge were more circumspect about where they fall on the scale. Those without a clue would often give themselves high(ish) ratings but be utterly clueless.

I also think the easiest person to fool is yourself. This is why the scientific method is so useful, it lets us try and isolate our biases.
 
Brombadil said:
<snipped relevant stuff>
Unfortunately, this requires at least a shred of self analysis and honest inquiry which some people have gone beyond a point where I do not think recovery is even possible. At least not without a tremendous amount of trial and tribulation that would be nothing short of a miracle. Circular reasoning is probably a harder one to break out of, and the rain man who dances and shakes sticks to change a planetary weather system is going to need a hard knock of reason before he can consider what he is doing to be demonstrably wrong.
Click to expand...

The big problem (IMO) with the DKesque posters in a place like this is that they don't know when they've been knocked to the floor. When the scrappy little man is lying on the floor, hurting everywhere, and his opponent is straightening is jacket and ordering a beer, it's pretty hard for him to deny that he was beaten. Not, unfortunately, impossible . . . but it's pretty hard.

But in a discussion forum, the DKesque don't seem to realize when they've been soundly refuted. They reject any conflicting evidence put forward by others, they insist that others' rejection of the DKesque's ideas is due to the others' pigheadedness or stupidity, and they really believe that the 'experts' in the DKesque's pet field are simply closed-minded defenders of a failed orthodoxy. They never realize that they're lying on the floor with one eye swelling shut and a couple of loose teeth, so they're not motivated to do any soul-searching.

<sigh>
 
Another compfounding factor with this is that even if you say directly to them that they are missing some knowledge about how the field in question works, they dismiss that as well.
 
Almo said:
Another compfounding factor with this is that even if you say directly to them that they are missing some knowledge about how the field in question works, they dismiss that as well.
Click to expand...

Well it's not their fault if you don't know how the chakra energy field sthe neutrino lines of force to make the water be magical!
 
MRC_Hans said:
A person has an unrealistic estimation of own competency on some subject, which is caused by ignorance(or lack of ability) of that subject.
Click to expand...
Hmmm.

So Archimedes thought that he was good at math. D-K effect, poor fellow. His math skills are below average modern high school standard.

So Picasso thought that he is good at painting. D-K effect, poor fellow. He was unable to do realistic perfection what guys like Ilja Repin or Michelangelo did.

Wait, Picasso turns from D-K into a genius if we agree with him that his art is good, instead of viewing his art as what it really is, realistically untalented scribbling.
 
Almo said:
Another compfounding factor with this is that even if you say directly to them that they are missing some knowledge about how the field in question works, they dismiss that as well.
Click to expand...

Oh, but they understand all of the important things about the field in question. Oh, sure, they may not have waded through all the tiny intricate details of quantum mechanics, but all that math you see in the physics textbooks is just blind groping for the real truth about quantum mechanics, and they understand the real truth about quantum mechanics just fine. I mean, if you were to plug a bunch of values into some formula with a lot of Greek letters and the formula spat out a 4, would that give you any real understanding? Of course not. 4 is just a number! So the real understanding is not to be found in pages of formulas with a bunch of Greek letters, it's found by really contemplating the fundamental issues and thinking out-of-the-box and incorporating the wisdom of the ages, preferably from wise old sages who spoke in generalities and are no longer around to dispute your interpretation of their work.

So of course they dismiss what you tell them. You're still limited to the narrow, confused obsession with minutia epitomized by those pages of formulas. What important thing could you possibly tell them? If only you'd open your eyes . . .

:rolleyes:
 
MRC_Hans said:
Recently, someone linked to info on the Dunning–Kruger effect

I hadn't seen a formal description before, but I think we see this a lot, and it gave me a new understanding of many posters, here and elsewhere.

In my view, a synopsis of the D-K effect is:

A person has an unrealistic estimation of own competency on some subject, which is caused by ignorance(or lack of ability) of that subject.

Example: Person considers himself a good singer, because he is unable to hear just how horribly off-key he is singing.

I suppose most, if not all, of us have some area where we are slightly affected by this, however, a lot of posters here, who get classified in the 'woo' or 'crackpot' category suffer from this effect.

Some of these are quite rational people, and once they find themselves in the company of more knowledgeable people, they often realize theiy own lackings, and listen to sense. The next step is that they abandon their faulty ideas and either learn about the subject, or just accept that this is outside their competence.

Others, especially if their D-K is paired with a touch of megalomania, persecution complex, and/or some form of fanatism, will not progress. They will instead dig themselves deeper into their conviction of being the only sensible person around, elaborate on their dream-world, and generally be a lost cause.

However, I think that understanding this mechanism will help us to help others, not to mention, at times, ourselves. ;)

Hans
Click to expand...
Thanks. I've been looking all over for a link to this phenomena. I didn't know it had been given a name.

I see it frequently. I recognized it in myself long ago when lots of my Universe contemplating went in wrong directions. Though I still haven't let go of some concepts that go against the mainstream but still make sense to me. I do however, recognize my shortcomings in these conclusions about the nature of the Universe.

I'm not ready to buy the claimed underlying causes of why some people don't recognize they don't know what they don't know. But clearly this phenomena exists and results in a lot of false beliefs. And, it is something worth paying attention to.
 
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