Me thinks. YES…
The Dunning-Kruger effect is the phenomenon whereby people who have little knowledge systematically think that they know more than others who have much more knowledge.
The phenomenon was demonstrated in a series of experiments performed by Justin Kruger and David Dunning, then both of Cornell University. Their results were published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in December 1999.[1]
Kruger and Dunning noted a number of previous studies which tend to suggest that in skills as diverse as reading comprehension, operating a motor vehicle, and playing chess or tennis, that “ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge” (as Charles Darwin put it). They hypothesized that with a typical skill which humans may possess in greater or lesser degree,
- incompetent individuals tend to overestimate their own level of skill,
- incompetent individuals fail to recognize genuine skill in others,
- incompetent individuals fail to recognize the extremity of their inadequacy,
- if they can be trained to substantially improve their own skill level, these individuals can recognize and acknowledge their own previous lack of skill.
They set out to test these hypotheses on human subjects consisting of Cornell undergraduates who were registered in various psychology courses.
In a series of studies, Kruger and Dunning examined self-assessment of logical reasoning skills, grammatical skills and humor. After being shown their test score, the subjects were again asked to estimate their own rank whereupon the competent group accurately estimated their rank, while the incompetent group still overestimated their own rank. As Dunning and Kruger noted,
“ Across 4 studies, the authors found that participants scoring in the bottom quartile on tests of humor, grammar, and logic grossly overestimated their test performance and ability. Although test scores put them in the 12th percentile, they estimated themselves to be in the 62nd. ” Meanwhile, people with true knowledge tended to underestimate their competence.
Boy, number 3 is dead on for Bush….
2 responses so far ↓
1 Anonymous // Jul 8, 2007 at 11:03 pm
This is a great explanation of why so many management and well-paying positions are often filled with individuals who are incompetent.
At one of my jobs the financial analyist and I had to prepare a handout for all the account managers which basically explained how to read a report that was your basic check register. We had master degrees, the account managers did not. Guess who got paid more - not me or the anlayist. The account managers could talk a good game, but in the end had to be walked through anything complex and constantly promised stuff to clients the analysit or I couldn’t deliver.
Word on the street from the analysit is that every so often management talks about replacing her with a admin assistant (because she’s not doing anything really hard you know…).
Dunning-Kruger Syndrome definitely explained the behavior of those above us.
2 Pollie Longthorne // Feb 20, 2008 at 5:00 pm
At last, some rational answer to why such an incompetent person arrived at such a high position! If the nation survives until November we will finally have the village idiot out!!
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