
Unskilled and Unaware of It (1999) [pdf] - johnny313
http://psych.colorado.edu/~vanboven/teaching/p7536_heurbias/p7536_readings/kruger_dunning.pdf
======
ballenf
In general use, I can't recall the Effect being cited outside attacks on a
political adversary or disfavored social group or group member. Basically
gives a scientific basis to insulting one's ignorant opponents.

Taking the point further, can anyone think of a mechanism by which the paper
has a positive effect? The ignorant person who is overly self-confident
presumably would be immune from its lessons, while the informed person is not
better informed about their domain.

How does the knowledge of the paper's findings benefit society? (I ask this
because the paper's findings seem to be widely celebrated.)

To the extent it makes readers more hesitant to boast or claim superior
knowledge, it's a good thing, but I have to think that those predisposed to
such boasting will continue rather unfazed. Maybe I'm just too much a
pessimist.

~~~
maxerickson
The main lesson I take from the paper is that self assessments aren't worth
all that much.

So when someone says they are good at something, don't just take their word
for it.

~~~
ahultgren
But a main lesson you could be taking is that you shouldn't trust your own
self assessment. If you think you're good at something, don't take your own
word for it.

~~~
dahart
Another main lesson you could be taking is that this paper is flawed and
doesn't actually prove anything about self-assessments in general, so don't
automatically second-guess anyone's word for it, even your own. Find the link
elsewhere in this thread titled "what the Dunning-Kruger effect is and isn’t".

------
j_m_b
People value confidence over competency. If you always question things because
you known enough to know that you don't know enough, people aren't going to
take you very seriously. Better for yourself if you fake it till you make it.
At least then you will have opportunities to advance in life. I rather suffer
from Dunning-Kruger than impostor syndrome.

~~~
jcadam
Absolutely. You've no idea the number of times I've sat in a meeting and
watched someone who clearly had no idea WTF he was talking about sway a
decision maker because he presented his BS (and also swatted down more
knowledgeable dissenters) with extreme confidence.

~~~
ryandrake
This is probably the one and only "work scenario" I've seen play out again and
again at every company I've ever worked at, without exception. These people
are everywhere.

~~~
albertgoeswoof
I have never seen this... which makes me wonder if I am the one BSing

~~~
Terr_
You might be working in a sector that they don't consider sexy and exploitable
enough.

------
praptak
Counterpoint: [https://www.talyarkoni.org/blog/2010/07/07/what-the-
dunning-...](https://www.talyarkoni.org/blog/2010/07/07/what-the-dunning-
kruger-effect-is-and-isnt/)

~~~
mar77i
What an amazing read! I saw the correlation between actual and perceived
ability and thought to myself, yeah, because the further up you go the more
you expect the scale to become logarithmically difficult, be it only to
imagine (for themselves) that it's even possible they don't get to actually
high score (100%).

That being said, there might be some statistical magic hidden in the graph,
where the group, the further up it goes, does less rely on self-rewarding by
guessing a lower score and splitting up into "actual" self-underselling for
mimicking, evening out with the ambitious but really good ones.

------
Animats
_" Participants were 95 Cornell undergraduates ... from ... courses in
psychology"._

Bad job, "researchers". That's not a suitable pool for studying this. That
group has already been filtered for competence. It's a rerun of the old joke
of someone asking a drunk why he's looking for his keys near a streetlight
when he didn't lose them there. "The light is better here." (In tech, some
clueless types do user experience testing on their own staff. Same problem.)

Try recruiting some subjects at the unemployment office.

~~~
GunlogAlm
I think the Dunning–Kruger effect is fairly well established, so I'm not sure
why you'd put "researchers" in scare quotes.

~~~
eanzenberg
Not scare quotes. The impression I got was, they’re not competent so not real
researchers.

~~~
ta76567656
That's what the phrase "scare quotes" means:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scare_quotes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scare_quotes)

------
daveguy
I've never been more aware of my own dunning kruger effect until I started
playing violin.

At first I was getting better fast and learning faster! I didn't often record
my playing and I should. After 1 year I thought I made significant
improvements and could play some songs "pretty good".

Into the second and third years I started being able to hear how scritchy and
a little out of tune I was in almost every song. I also started listening to
recordings of myself and shuddered at the sound.

I didn't _know_ how bad I was because I was making such great improvements
(from ignorant and being unable to play twinkle twinkle little star). It
wasn't until I got mediocre that I could even hear how mediocre I am.

I think some of it is the big leap from total ignorance to beginner knowledge.
It "feels" like you are getting better _quickly_ and learning fast because you
have no reference.

------
orbifold
This is a strange way of phrasing the result, since the participants were all
from a group of university students their skill distribution in all those
fields was probably above average with respect to the overall population
(especially since they were Cornell students). So I do not find it that
surprising that they assessed themselves higher than warranted because in
their experience they probably encountered many more people who had a lower
skill level compared to them.

------
jcadam
I believe myself to be a competent programmer. Does this mean I'm incompetent?

It's possible; I can't ignore the possibility.

There goes my self-confidence again.

~~~
ericmcer
Doesn't this self-doubt imply that you are now competent? I have always found
the Dunning-Kruger effect to be more of a fun novelty than a practical tool.

~~~
jcadam
Possibly, but then the minute I stop doubting myself, I become incompetent
again.

------
javadocmd
I would be interested in a cross-cultural evaluation of the Dunning-Kruger
effect. This study was performed in the US. Is the effect as prominent in
Russia? Sweden? China? South Africa? Across racial boundaries? Across class
boundaries? I suspect a strong cultural and environmental influence.

~~~
robotresearcher
The original study was of 65 undergrad psychologists at Cornell who got extra
credit for participation. Probably a relatively narrow pool of personalities
even in that region of the US.

Anyone know of replications with a wider pool?

~~~
andersonfreitas
In this study [1] the experiments were replicated in Hong Kong with 4034 high
school students and in US with 95 students.

[1] "Why Do People Overestimate or Underestimate Their Abilities? A Cross-
Culturally Valid Model of Cognitive and Motivational Processes in Self-
Assessment Biases"
[http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022022116661243](http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022022116661243)
(paywalled)

~~~
throwaway0U812
here's the article, for scientific purposes:

[https://file.io/41t2Gv](https://file.io/41t2Gv)

------
faragon
Dunning-Kruger effect explanation should be in every single high school
education program. Quoting Bertrand Russell: "The fundamental cause of the
trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the
intelligent are full of doubt" (1933, "The Triumph of Stupidity" essay [1],
also discussed in HN [2]).

[1] [http://russell-j.com/0583TS.HTM](http://russell-j.com/0583TS.HTM)

[2]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10636818](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10636818)

------
itsmemattchung
Presumably, the original paper of the dunning kruger effect[1].

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect)

------
etiam
Recognized with the Ig Nobel Prize in Psychology in 2000.

[https://www.improbable.com/ig/ig-
pastwinners.html#ig2000](https://www.improbable.com/ig/ig-
pastwinners.html#ig2000)

------
throwacide
“Adventures in negative vs positive reinforcement experiments via ‘studies’
shown as social media content”

~~~
frozenport
"Without reading the article"

------
77pt77
Every time I've witnessed in person the Dunning-Kruger effect being used in
real life, the person bringing it up was under its spell...

~~~
justherefortart
Every time you say...

------
crispytx
TL;DR

People thought they did well on a test but actually performed poorly relative
to their peers! Haha, losers!

------
justonepost
How do you test for humor?

~~~
cldellow
The third page of the study explains how they tested for humour. It's kind of
fun to propose how they might have tested for each fo the 4 attributes they
mention, then check to see how they actually did it.

------
anonu
tldr know thyself

------
milliams
Could this have a (1999) put on it?

~~~
sctb
Yes, done. Thanks!

------
quasarj
lol this is the original Dunning-Kruger paper.. why is it news now?

