"Rather, it’s that incompetent people think they’re much better than they actually are. But they typically still don’t think they’re quite as good as people who, you know, actually are good."
Unfortunately, while the incompetent people may believe that they are not quite as good as people who actually are good, the problem is that they are not qualified to identify people who are actually good. From the original paper:
"That is, the same incompetence that leads them to make wrong choices also deprives them of the savvy necessary to recognize competence, be it their own or anyone else’s."
"As predicted, participants who scored in the bottom quartile were less able to gauge the competence of others than were their top-quartile counterparts." [2]
So while the incompetent people may not believe themselves to be experts in general, they are less able to identify that the person sitting next to them is an expert.
And further: "Bottom-quartile participants failed to gain insight into their own performance after seeing the more competent choices of their peers. ... [they] tended to raise their already inflated self-estimates."
Not only do they fail to identify the expert next to them, but when presented with the expert's answers they will raise the own inflated estimate!
Therefore, I believe that in practice, the DK paper does support the belief that less competent people believe themselves to be more competent than experts.
[2] Kruger, Justin; Dunning, David (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
"Rather, it’s that incompetent people think they’re much better than they actually are. But they typically still don’t think they’re quite as good as people who, you know, actually are good."
Unfortunately, while the incompetent people may believe that they are not quite as good as people who actually are good, the problem is that they are not qualified to identify people who are actually good. From the original paper:
"That is, the same incompetence that leads them to make wrong choices also deprives them of the savvy necessary to recognize competence, be it their own or anyone else’s."
"As predicted, participants who scored in the bottom quartile were less able to gauge the competence of others than were their top-quartile counterparts." [2]
So while the incompetent people may not believe themselves to be experts in general, they are less able to identify that the person sitting next to them is an expert.
And further: "Bottom-quartile participants failed to gain insight into their own performance after seeing the more competent choices of their peers. ... [they] tended to raise their already inflated self-estimates."
Not only do they fail to identify the expert next to them, but when presented with the expert's answers they will raise the own inflated estimate!
Therefore, I believe that in practice, the DK paper does support the belief that less competent people believe themselves to be more competent than experts.
[2] Kruger, Justin; Dunning, David (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