Why Do Stupid People Think They're Smart? The Dunning Kruger Effect (ani...

It has been about 5 months since my last post. To be quite honest, at some point I was considering to delete this blog. Mainluy due to the fact that I do not make any profit whatsoever out of this. My only reward out of this page is the satisfaction of the few readers I have. Apart from what I learn myself by writing this posts. The topic for today has to do with some people overstimating their intellectual skills. In the following, I will tackle to "The Dunning Kruger Effect" to the best of my ability.

Rumor has it that at some point at 1995, a man decided to rob a bank in Pitsburg, Penssylvania by himself. He was convinced that since he had smeared his face with lemon juice, he would not get recognized by the security cameras. His reasoning was that since this juice was one of the compotents used to make invisible ink, his idea would work. Be that as it may, he was sadly mistaken. Not only did he not succeed in his endeavor, he was also shown the footage of the robbery. Despite the proof, he was quite dazzled to realize his plan had failed. 

This peculiar case inspired Cornel University psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger to research this phenomenon in depth. He conducted a study with two groups of undergraduate students in different categories. The categories taken into account were: grammatical writing, logical reasoning, and sense of humor. After all the participants had taken the test, they were asked how well they thought they had scored. The group with the lowest score overstimated their results by a large margin.  As opposed to the other group who had performed better than they anticipated. The first group ended up obtaining a low score. The second on the other hand overperformed. The Dunning Kruger Effect posits that low ability people wronly assume to have better skills at a particular discipline than they actually do.

In summary, I would say that the more we know about a subject, the more we realize how much we still have to learn. It is always highly recommed to have unbiased feedback from peers and teachers. As well keeping track of our progress. 

Sources:

- Better Than Yesterday YouTube Channel.                                                                                        - Dunning-Kruger Effect | Psychology Today

Better Than Yesterday