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blinkist we all like to think we are
good at certain things above average in
certain areas most of us are at some
things but the truth is you are likely
wrong about how good or bad you are at
many things it is likely that you both
over and underestimate your actual
abilities in numerous areas of life and
the areas and the degree to which you're
wrong would probably surprise
you in a 1999 study psychologists David
Dunning and Justin Krueger discovered a
phenomenon that would be coined the
Dunning Krueger effect after giving
participants of the study various tests
that assess their abilities in humor
logical reasoning and grammar the
participants were then asked to self
assess their performance in relation to
their peers in the study Dunning and
Krueger found that people who perform
poorly on the tests tended to believe
that they did far better than they
actually did while those who performed
well tended to misperceive their
performance in relation to the average
of their peers in other words the study
would discover the cognitive bias where
people who are less knowledgeable or
experienced in an area tend to believe
that they are much more competent in
that area than they actually are and
those who are experienced and
knowledgeable in an area tend to
underestimate or doubt their abilities
these cognitive biases are the dun and
Krueger effect although the phenomenon
is debated amongst researchers and on
the surface the effect may seem
paradoxical and bizarre arguably the
cause is
understandable If someone knows knows
little about a subject or has little
experience in a particular area they do
not have enough experience or knowledge
to recognize the degree of their
incompetence in other words they don't
know enough to know what they do not
know 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 said Dunning on
the flip side people with more knowledge
and experience in an area are aware of
the complexity vastness and difficulty
involved in being right or successful
and thus they are likely to be more
doubtful of their abilities they also
tend to think that others are more
capable in the area than what is
actually the case and so they are also
more likely to underestimate themselves
when ranked against others examples of
the dun and Krueger effect demonstrated
in studies include things like driving
where Studies have shown that 93% of
American drivers believe they are better
than average the phenomenon is also
often present in the workplace where
employees of companies tend to
overestimate their performance compared
to their co-workers where as many as
more than 40% of a company's employees
believe that they are in the top 5% of
performers of course everyone can't be
better than most there must be a
most throughout the processes of
learning strategizing evaluating and
reflecting there is another process at
play referred to as metacognition
metacognition is the awareness of One's
Own thought processes it's one's
thoughts about thinking a major part of
the learning process and a major factor
in being competent in something is the
ability through metacognition to
recognize patterns errors and problems
in one's thinking and then employ
strategies to deal with and overcome
them according to Dunning and Krueger
when someone is incompetent in an area
they lack metacognitive abilities in
that area as a result this lack of
awareness of their thought processes and
knowledge prevents them from recognizing
where and when they may go wrong and so
in their mind they never
do the phenomenon can be fairly
unsettling on the individual scale to
know that you don't know what you don't
know of course you already knew that but
the degree to which you're unaware in
the areas that you might have such
oversights where you might otherwise
feel pretty confident can be
disconcerting but it's even more
unsettling when considered on the
collective societal scale what's Curious
is that in many cases incompetence does
not leave people disoriented perplexed
or cautious instead the incompetent are
often blessed with an inappropriate
confidence booed by something that feels
to them like knowledge said Dunning
partly as a result of the Dunning
Krueger effect people who are not
qualified to speak on certain subjects
are still some of the most confident and
loudest who do more qualified
individuals rather tend to be less loud
and less simplistic and instead more
thoughtful and cautious and for
exceptionally high level experts since
they tend to misperceive how big of a
gap there is between them and the
average person it can be reasonably
assumed that they are likely to
insufficiently communicate about about
the subject they are an expert in with
the general audience and of course in
some cases complex things simply cannot
be fully explained quickly or in
comprehensive terms to individuals who
are not experts themselves and so out of
the lot here the incompetent but
confident amateure the competent but
cautious intermediate or the
exceptionally competent expert who is
confident but struggles to understand
and communicate with the Layman who is
more convincing to a mass audience of
individuals who do not know the
difference between correct and false
information it seemingly become more and
more common to have an opinion about
nearly everything maybe it's always been
this way maybe having access to all the
world's information but only enough time
to read the headlines and the incentive
to still leave a comment has exacerbated
this human tendency whatever the case
because of this and in combination with
the dun and Krueger effect some of the
voices we hear the most of are the least
qualified useful or accurate they are
rather voices of confidence and Charisma
not nuance and Care the right voices
rather are often quieter harder to parse
or still looking for the right words and
means to express themselves it's natural
to want to have a voice that is heard
it's desirable to be perceived liked
followed impactful being a voice of
change and impact is a noble goal but
sometimes the greatest impact is silence
does the world really need more voices
or does the world need more careful
voices
of course the irony here being a voice
that is not silent is not lost but the
point here is not merely about being
silent outright it is about being
carefully noisy at least attempting to
be it's impossible to have no opinions
but it is possible to have less or be
more careful around how we hold the ones
we
do once you know about the dun and
Krueger effect it might feel like now
you are no longer susceptible to it or
perhaps you might feel as though it's
something you never were susceptible to
you're not the kind of person who
overestimates their abilities you're
cautious and thoughtful and self-aware
you never make claims about things you
don't know you know your blind spots but
of course that's not how blind spots
work in truth do you think anyone who is
subject to the dun and Krueger effect
overestimating their abilities or
knowledge thinks they are the phenomenon
is precisely that one does not know that
they are a victim to it the first rule
of the dun and Krueger club is that you
don't know you're a member of the dun
and Krueger club said Dunning in fact
thinking you're impervious to the
Dunning Krueger effect is itself an
example of the Dunning Krueger effect
you know just enough about the
phenomenon to believe you can circumvent
it while not knowing enough to know you
probably can't at least not
automatically or
universally perhaps however we can
overcome it more often with a certain
kind of awareness and attitude by more
regularly being silent by being willing
to be a nobody to let our voice our
presence our existence
not always be involved we can perhaps be
a victim of the effect less and be on
the right side of the effect more in
truth the average person is well read
and experienced in a relatively small
quantity of things at best we don't need
to be in more than that we shouldn't try
or pretend to be after a certain point
the quantity of opinions one holds is
almost always inversely proportional to
the quality and accuracy of them we will
inevitably often fail at correctly
making the distinction for ourselves and
knowing which areas we belong in and
which of our opinions deserve sharing
but that's okay the goal here is simply
to try our best ultimately the Dunning
Krueger effect is a continual sliding
scale that follows us through life as
long as we take on new Endeavors new
challenges new goals we will be
incompetent in certain areas and as long
as we are incompetent we'll be partially
ignorant to the true degree of our
incompetence but as long as we continue
to learn and grow we will also uncover
new knowledge and we will continue to
realign our self-perception with our
actual abilities life is a continuous
cycle of realizing how little you knew
how much you were wrong and how complex
things really are and then realizing it
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blinkist our awareness of oursel is
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our biases and oversights have tangible
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