[extropy-chat] Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments

[Colin Geoffrey Hales]

> Just got sent this, thought it'd make a few people laugh.
>
> -----
>
> Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own
> Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments
> (Justin Kruger and David Dunning, Cornell University)
>
> http://www.apa.org/journals/features/psp7761121.pdf
>
> People tend to hold overly favorable views of their abilities in many
> social and intellectual domains. The authors suggest that this
> overestimation occurs, in part, because people who are unskilled in
> these domains suffer a dual burden: Not only do these people reach
> erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their
> incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it.
> 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 their test
> scores put them in the 12th percentile, they estimated themselves to
> be in the 62nd. Several analyses linked this miscalibration to
> deficits in metacognitive skill, or the capacity to distinguish
> accuracy from error. Paradoxically, improving the skills of
> participants, and thus increasing their metacognitive competence,
> helped them recognize the limitations of their abilities.
>
> ---
>
> Emlyn

Knowing that you don't know something is perhaps the most poweful aspect
of our cognitive processes. You can be wrong - must be wrong - to be
creative and the payback is you get to be right - sometimes. Ready- fire-
aim. But if you don't know you don't know, you are paddling up the
proverbial. But then you all knew that, didn't you? I didn't. I knew that
I didn't know that I didn't know it, so that's alright then. Wait. No I
didn't. I think. Now I do though.

meta-Colin
The actual Colin is in the toilet, so I'm here instead.