The Dunning-Kruger effect or why a fool is always smarter. For young scientists

Dunning-Kruger effect cognitive distortion, which lies in the fact that “people with a low level of qualification draw erroneous conclusions and make bad decisions, but are not able to realize their mistakes due to their low level qualifications". This leads them to overestimate their own abilities, while really highly qualified people, on the contrary, tend to underestimate their abilities and suffer from insufficient self-confidence, considering others more competent. Thus, less competent people generally have a higher opinion of their own abilities than do competent people, who also tend to assume that others evaluate their abilities as low as they do themselves.

Misconception: You can easily determine your capabilities and knowledge in a particular area.

Reality: Really objectively evaluate your abilities and difficulty complex tasks not so easy.

Imagine that you are good at a game, be it chess, Street Fighter, or poker.
You regularly play it with your friends and always win. You are doing great and are already almost sure that you are able to win the whole competition. On the Internet, you will find out where the next regional tournament will be held; pay for participation and in the first round you lose shamefully. It turns out you're not that smart. All this time you thought you were the best of the best, but it turned out you were just an amateur. This phenomenon is called the Dunning-Kruger effect and is an integral part of human nature.

Just remember the numerous YouTube stars for last years- clumsily twisting nunchucks and singing out of place. Almost all of these performances are simply terrible, and most importantly, the “stars” themselves do not even notice their mediocrity and act in all seriousness. This is a really pathetic sight, after which one involuntarily wonders why they are disgraced in front of such a large audience? The point is that they feel as if the world will admire their “talents” just as much as close friends, family, and peers.

"AT modern world the stupid are overconfident, while the smart are full of doubts.”
— Bertrand Russell

Thanks to the Dunning-Kruger effect, TV shows such as America Full of Talent and American Idol became famous. At the local karaoke bar, you can be the best singer. What if you have to compete with an entire country? Will you be the best? I don't think.

Have you ever wondered why people degree candidate geographical or biological sciences do not discuss problems on Internet forums global warming or evolution? On the other hand, those who have no idea about psychology write 1200-word articles about psychological distortion.

The less you know any subject, the more it seems to you that this knowledge that you have is enough, and you no longer need to study. Only when you gain experience do you begin to discern the full depth and breadth of the subject, and to get at least some idea of it, you have to sweat a lot.

Of course it's all in in general terms. In 2008, economist Robin Hanson noted that the Dunning-Kruger effect is especially pronounced before elections, when opponents look more like morons than politicians.

In 1999, Justin Krueger and David Dunning hypothesized the existence of this effect based on experiments conducted at Cornell University. They asked students to take a grammar and logic test and then give themselves a rough estimate. It is important to note here that some subjects were able to determine the level of their abilities. Some knew they had flat humor, and they were right. The results of the study were very interesting. When gifted people they realize that they have talent, they can say exactly how they completed this or that task, but of course there are exceptions. In general, many are not able to evaluate themselves.

Recent studies have attempted to refute the categorical Dunning-Kruger hypothesis by pointing out that capable people At least they are aware of their shortcomings.

A 2006 study by Barson, Larrick, and Kleiman found:

Subjects who did well on the easy task and those who did poorly on the difficult task were able to accurately assess their results.

"Skillful or unskillful, but still unconscious" - Barson, Larrick and Kleiman.

Hence the conclusion:

The more skills, practice and experience a person has, the more objectively he evaluates himself. In the process of working on yourself, you gradually begin to notice your shortcomings and improve your skills. You open all the complexity and nuances; Getting acquainted with the activities of the masters, and comparing yourself with them, you find that you still have a lot to learn. Conversely, the less skills, practice and experience a person has, the more difficult it is for him to evaluate himself. Your peers do not point out flaws to you because they know as much as you do, or simply do not want to offend. A negligible advantage over beginners gives you a false image of yourself - as if you are the navel of the earth.

"Ignorance is always more certain than knowledge."
- Charles Darwin

In any activity, be it playing the guitar, composing short stories(or blogging), telling jokes or taking photos, amateurs will always consider themselves experts in their field, cooler than the experts themselves. Education is not only about getting theoretical knowledge but also their practical use.

Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt illustrative examples the Dunning-Kruger effect. An entire industry of nerds makes a living out of two attractive but untalented people, convincing them that they are the embodiment of auteur film geniuses. They are deeply mired in the abyss of ignorance, and may never get out of there. All of America is laughing at them more precisely people who know that they are Americans), and they, being at the epicenter of this tragedy, are unaware of it.

The line between beginner and amateur, master and expert is not easily recognized. The further you go, the longer it will take to move from one step to the next. From beginner to amateur is just one step. It is at this stage that the Dunning-Kruger effect is most pronounced. Do you think it would take the same amount of effort to go from amateur to expert? You are wrong. Anyone who has played role-playing games will understand what in question. If the game has 100 levels, then the first twenty you will pass with your eyes closed, but to pass the 50th level, you may need more time than you spent on the whole game.

We all experience the Dunning-Kruger effect from time to time. It is not very pleasant to constantly admit all the mistakes and weaknesses, and always be honest with yourself. Are you absolutely convinced that your drawings of root dogs are worthy of being exhibited in a museum? There is nothing wrong. The feeling of inferiority or inadequacy deprives of all hope - in order to get rid of it, you need to make a lot of effort. In direct contrast to the Dunning-Kruger effect, this is a deep depression with a symptom of chilling insecurity.

The real problem comes when people who are likable but incompetent try to run a company or a country.

Don't let the Dunning-Kruger effect get you. If you want to be good at something, you need practice. You can also learn from the great masters of their craft. Compare yourself to talented people and learn humility from them.

For young scientists:

A person often inadequately evaluates others, and even more often - himself. Professionals often consider themselves mediocre, and nonentities behave as if they are brilliant. It is clear that the referee with a whistle will not help here, but where does such self-deception come from? Two scientists - psychologists from Cornwall - David Dunning and Justin Kruger discovered Dunning-Kruger effect based on their research on this issue.

Of course, they were not pioneers in this area. Psychologists have long known that average person evaluates his abilities above average. A survey of engineers at one company showed that 42% of those surveyed considered themselves in the top 5%. Older people often say they drive better than the average driver (whereas traffic accident statistics show otherwise). Even professors were not spared the reassessment of their own knowledge: 94% of participants in one survey said that their work is better than mediocre!

Psychologists Dunning and Kruger are professionally engaged in studying the causes of errors in the perception of the world by a person. To understand where the roots of this particular lie lie, they began to look for those with the most inflated self-esteem. In the experiment, before the exam, students were asked to evaluate their knowledge and anticipate their result in comparison with others. It turned out that the weakest students are the most self-confident. But surprised Researchers put forward a hypothesis that the ignoramuses not only know the subject poorly, but because of their poor knowledge are not able to objectively assess the degree of their ignorance. Connoisseurs easily tinker with the task, and then think that it will be easy for everyone else. That is why they rate themselves lower in relation to how other people view them. This generalization about the best and worst is called Dunning-Kruger effect.

In science (as in other forms human activity) often new idea not accepted by society. There is even the idea that each scientific hypothesis goes through 3 stages:

Ridicule - it's necessary, what a fool came up with it!;
criticism - no, the hypothesis is normal, only erroneous;
recognition - well, everyone knew that anyway.

A similar fate has not bypassed our psychologists. The press openly laughed at the researchers: it's ridiculous where the state money is thrown! Colleagues did not lag behind - in 2000, Dunning and Kruger received a playful Ig Nobel Prize, which is often given for high-quality, but incomprehensible to society (usually from a pragmatic point of view) discoveries.

(By the way, in the same year, the Dutch physicist also received Schnobel Russian origin Andrew Game. Everyone was greatly amused by his demonstration of the flight of an ordinary toad under the influence of magnets. But 10 years later, Game was awarded the real Nobel Prize, although for a different job - the creation of graphene. Like this.)

Then came the criticism. Some scholars have stated that there are no special mechanisms in self-assessment errors. It's just that people have a habit of defining themselves as "better than average." This label is very far from the ignorant, so they greatly overestimate their performance, but closer to the best, so these are somewhat underestimated. Other scientists have noted that exam tasks the experimenters chose simple ones, so the “losers” were caught off guard, because they did not see the difficulties, and the “excellent students” hoped for an equal result for all students. Give them challenging tasks, and the weak will become more modest, and the strong will understand their power - critics suggested. Also, perhaps the losers were not motivated to take their chances seriously and talked about the results at random. Well, all the studies were "laboratory", i.e. an experiment was conducted, and the subjects knew about it. Maybe in real life all wrong?

Dunning and Kruger dutifully set about testing hypotheses. First, they repeated their old experiments with the exam (quite difficult - no one scored more than a "four plus", but asked the students to predict not only their relative result (whether they would be better), but also their absolute result (how many correct answers they would give). Initial the hypothesis was confirmed in both cases, although the best students guessed the number of points better than the relative "places. "The same test was then carried out in the "field conditions" - on participants in regular university debates between rounds of discussion. although the best on different rating scales either hit their real result, or even slightly exaggerated their own abilities.

The next poll was even sharper. Psychologists worked with participants in shooting competitions. In order for them to take the task seriously, some of them were offered money for a successful forecast: from 5 to 10 dollars. They answered questions on the knowledge of safety and weapon design. And again, the hypothesis was confirmed - the worst were self-confident, the best underestimated their results. Moreover, those who were promised money added even more to their tendency to overstate and underestimate! The same was shown with poor students who were already offered $100. Other students were changed from financial motivation to social: they were promised an interview with their professor, where their ability to anticipate their own results would be assessed. And again - no motivation helped people evaluate themselves more accurately.

So the critics were clearly wrong. But Dunning and Kruger went further. Few show that does not affect the error with self-perception. Interesting to know what causes them. There were two hypotheses here: either these are incorrect assessments of one's capabilities, or an inadequate reflection of other people's abilities. During the key experiment, the scientists again asked people to predict their own scores on exams and average result all participants. After that, the two groups were given a hint and asked to correct the answer. One group was told the real own result and required to correct the average value, the second - vice versa. Thus, the contribution to the error from self-assessment and the perception of others was studied. It turned out that the worst were catastrophically wrong in predicting their success. But the leaders quite accurately know their own worth, but they consider their abilities to be ordinary, not different from others, and therefore they underestimate their relative result.

Science not only discovers the mechanisms of what is happening around, but also draws conclusions. She also gives recommendations on how we can improve our lives. How to improve the adequacy of self-esteem in weak students and ignorant people? Dunning and Kruger write that the main problem of such individuals is the lack of knowledge to evaluate their knowledge. Such a "double curse" or a vicious circle. But in this circle there is a clue: study, become more competent, then you can evaluate yourself objectively. Psychologists also recommend teaching children the fact that the acquisition of any knowledge is feasible for everyone, namely, new knowledge is extremely interesting. It has already been proven that students who believe in the pliability of the "granite of science" perceive knowledge better and better anticipate their own results.

Therefore, we call on teachers and teachers: tell your pupils and students that the path to science is long and requires work, but the main thing is that it can be overcome and gives everyone the incredible joy of discovery! We believe in this and will continue to strive to help our readers become more competent, more persistent, more joyful observers and partakers of the great world of science.

Dunning-Kruger effect January 21st, 2016

In general, this is in simple words about the obvious, but still. In a simple way, it can be formulated something like this - stupid man makes mistakes, but cannot realize his mistake because of his own stupidity.

This is a pardoned interpretation of cognitive bias that Justin Krueger and David Dunning described in 1999. The full wording is: “People with a low level of qualification draw erroneous conclusions and make bad decisions, but are not able to realize their mistakes due to their low level of qualification.”

Failure to understand mistakes leads to self-righteousness, and consequently, increased self-confidence and awareness of one's superiority. Thus, the Dunning-Kruger effect is a psychological paradox that we all often face in life: less competent people consider themselves professionals, and more competent people tend to doubt themselves and their abilities.

The starting point of their research Dunning and Krueger called famous sayings Charles Darwin:

“Ignorance breeds confidence more often than knowledge”

and Bertrand Russell:

“One of the unfortunate things about our time is that those who are sure are stupid, and those who have any imagination and understanding are full of doubt and indecision.”

And now a little more complicated, but more ...

We perceive the world sense organs. Everything that we see, hear, and somehow feel, enters our brain as a data stream. The brain evaluates the data, and based on it we make a decision. This decision determines our next steps.

If the heat receptors in the mouth send us a signal that we are drinking boiling water, we will spit it out. When we sense that someone is about to harm us, we prepare to defend ourselves. When, while driving, we see that the brake lights of the car in front of us light up, our foot will instantly move from the gas pedal to the brake pedal.

The rules by which our brain makes decisions are called mental models. Mental models are ideas stored in our brains about how the world around us works.

For each of our mental models, it is necessary to determine how much it corresponds to reality. This correspondence can be denoted as objectivity. The idea that by refusing a serving of ice cream we will solve the problem of hunger in Africa obviously has a very low measure of objectivity, but the probability that a person will die by shooting himself in the head is very high, that is, high measure objectivity.

However, our brain has a tendency to succumb to the so-called Dunning-Kruger effect. This means that there are mental models in our heads that we sincerely believe in, even if they do not correspond to reality. In other words, our subjective ideas sometimes replace our objective reality. Recent studies have shown that some of our subjective ideas about the structure of the world caused the same confidence as an objective fact like: 2 + 2 = 4, however, even in absolute certainty, our brain is often mistaken.

A certain MacArthur Wheeler from Pittsburgh robbed two banks in broad daylight without any disguise. CCTV cameras captured Wheeler's face, allowing the police to quickly apprehend him. The offender was shocked by his detention. After the arrest, looking around in disbelief, he said: "I smeared my face with juice."

Thief Wheeler was convinced that by smearing his face (including his eyes) with lemon juice, he would become invisible to video cameras. He believed this so much that, having smeared himself with juice, he went to rob banks without fear. What for us is an absolutely absurd model, for him is an irrefutable truth. Wheeler gave his biased model an absolutely subjective certainty. He was subject to the Dunning-Kruger effect.

The "lemon thief" Wheeler inspired researchers David Dunning and Justin Krueger to take a closer look at this phenomenon. Researchers were interested in the difference between a person's real abilities and his perception of these abilities. They formulated the hypothesis that a person with insufficient ability suffers from two types of difficulties:

due to his inability to accept wrong decisions(for example, having smeared with lemon juice, he goes to rob banks);
is he unable to comprehend that he made the wrong decision (Wheeler was not convinced of his inability to be "invisible" even by the recordings of video cameras, which he called falsified).

The researchers tested the validity of these hypotheses on an experimental group of people who first completed a test that measured their ability in a specific area ( logical thinking, grammar or sense of humor), then they had to assume their level of knowledge and skills in this area.

The study found two interesting trends:

The least capable people (referred to in the study as incompetent) tended their abilities significantly overestimate. In addition, the worse the abilities were, the more appreciation they gave themselves. For example, the more unbearable a person was, the more he thought he was funny. This fact was already clearly formulated by Charles Darwin: “Ignorance more often gives birth to confidence than knowledge”;
The most capable (designated as competent) tended their abilities underestimate. This is explained by the fact that if a task seems simple to a person, then he gets the feeling that this task will be simple for everyone else.

In the second part of the experiment, the subjects had the opportunity to study the test results of the other participants, followed by repeated self-assessment.

Competente compared to the rest realized that they are better than expected. Therefore, they corrected their self-esteem and began to evaluate themselves more objectively.

incompetente after contact with reality, their biased self-assessment did not change. They were unable to recognize that the abilities of others were better than their own. As Forrest Gump said, "every fool is for a fool."

1 The protagonist of the novel of the same name by Winston Groom and the film by Robert Zemeckis, a man with mental retardation. - Note. lane.

The conclusion of the study is this: people who don't know don't know (don't realize) that they don't know. The incompetent tend to greatly overestimate their own abilities, fail to recognize the abilities of others, and do not change their assessment when confronted with reality. About people suffering from this problem, for simplicity, let's say that they have Dunning–Kruger(abbreviated D-K). The study showed that people come to biased and erroneous conclusions, but their bias does not allow them to understand and admit it.

THE RESEARCH HAS SHOWED TWO MAJOR TRENDS:

I. COMPETENTE HAVE A TENDENCY TO UNDERSTAND THEMSELVES

II. INCOMPETENTE HAVE A TENDENCY TO OVERESTATE THEMSELVES.

The brain protects us with sweet ignorance

The fact that in the case of the Dunning-Kruger effect one could speak of some kind of defensive reaction human brain, confirms the state called anosognosia one . Let us give an example: a patient who has lost one of the limbs and suffers from anosognosia thinks that he still has this limb, and it is impossible to explain the opposite to him. When a doctor talks to a patient about his healthy left hand, the patient communicates normally. But as soon as it comes to right hand which he does not have, the patient pretends not to hear. Monitoring of brain activity showed that the patient does this unconsciously, his damaged brain blocks information indicating his own shortcoming, even at a subconscious level. There were even cases when it was impossible to explain to a blind person that he was blind. This extreme case of anosognosia supports the theory that our brains are capable of ignoring information that indicates our incompetence.

Sometimes our brain, as in the case of anosognosia, reacts to information that indicates the fallacy of our mental models by simply ignoring it. Keeps us in a state of bias and sweet ignorance. What risk does this carry? Why should we strive for objectivity?

1 Anosognosia- absence critical appraisal sick of his defect or disease. Occurs predominantly in lesions right parietal lobe of the brain, in some cases may indicate a severe mental disorder with a violation of criticism, in others - to the warehouse of the patient's personality or to the fact that he uses psychological defense mechanisms.

http://www.factroom.ru/facts/24415

http://megamozg.ru/post/10194/

And here's something else psychological for you: let's remember, for example, about or why. It happens that and The original article is on the website InfoGlaz.rf Link to the article from which this copy is made -

And now a little more complicated, but in more detail ...

We perceive the world around us with our senses. Everything that we see, hear, and somehow feel, enters our brain as a data stream. The brain evaluates the data, and based on it we make a decision. This decision determines our next steps.

If the heat receptors in the mouth send us a signal that we are drinking boiling water, we will spit it out. When we sense that someone is about to harm us, we prepare to defend ourselves.

When, while driving, we see that the brake lights of the car in front of us light up, our foot will instantly move from the gas pedal to the brake pedal.

The rules by which our brain makes decisions are called mental models. Mental models are ideas stored in our brains about how the world around us works.

For each of our mental models, it is necessary to determine how much it corresponds to reality. We can designate this correspondence as its objectivity.

The idea that by refusing a serving of ice cream we will solve the problem of hunger in Africa obviously has a very low measure of objectivity, but the probability that a person will die by shooting himself in the head is very high, that is, it has a high measure of objectivity .

However, our brain has a tendency to succumb to the so-called Dunning-Kruger effect. This means that there are mental models in our heads that we sincerely believe in, even if they do not correspond to reality.

In other words, our subjective ideas sometimes replace our objective reality.

Recent studies have shown that some of our subjective ideas about the structure of the world caused the same confidence as an objective fact like: 2 + 2 = 4, however, even in absolute certainty, our brain is often mistaken.

A certain MacArthur Wheeler from Pittsburgh robbed two banks in broad daylight without any disguise. CCTV cameras captured Wheeler's face, allowing the police to quickly apprehend him.

The offender was shocked by his detention. After the arrest, looking around in disbelief, he said: "I smeared my face with juice."

What for us is an absolutely absurd model, for him is an irrefutable truth. Wheeler gave his biased model an absolutely subjective certainty. He was subject to the Dunning-Kruger effect.

The "lemon thief" Wheeler inspired researchers David Dunning and Justin Krueger to take a closer look at this phenomenon.

Researchers were interested in the difference between a person's real abilities and his perception of these abilities. They formulated the hypothesis that a person with insufficient ability suffers from two types of difficulties:

Due to his inability, he makes wrong decisions (for example, having smeared himself with lemon juice, he goes to rob banks);

He is incapable of realizing that he made the wrong decision (Wheeler was not convinced of his inability to be "invisible" even by the video recordings, which he called falsified).

The researchers tested the reliability of these hypotheses on an experimental group of people who first completed a test that measured their abilities in a particular area (logical thinking, grammar or sense of humor), then they had to assume their level of knowledge and skills in this area.

The study found two interesting trends:

The least capable people (referred to in the study as incompetent) tended to greatly overestimate their abilities. In addition, the worse the abilities were, the more appreciation they gave themselves. For example, the more unbearable a person was, the more he thought he was funny. This fact was already clearly formulated by Charles Darwin: “Ignorance more often gives birth to confidence than knowledge.”

The most able (designated as competent) tended to underestimate their abilities. This is explained by the fact that if a task seems simple to a person, then he gets the feeling that this task will be simple for everyone else.

In the second part of the experiment, the subjects had the opportunity to study the test results of the other participants, followed by repeated self-assessment.

Competent compared to the rest realized that they are better than expected. Therefore, they corrected their self-esteem and began to evaluate themselves more objectively.

The incompetent, after contact with reality, did not change their biased self-assessment. They were unable to recognize that the abilities of others were better than their own. As Forrest Gump said, "every fool is for a fool."

(Forrest Gump - the protagonist the novel of the same name by Winston Groom and the film by Robert Zemeckis, a man with mental retardation. - Approx. trans.)

The conclusion of the study is this: people who don't know don't know (don't realize) that they don't know.

The incompetent tend to greatly overestimate their own abilities, fail to recognize the abilities of others, and do not change their assessment when confronted with reality.

For people who suffer from this problem, for simplicity, we say that they have Dunning-Kruger (abbreviated D-K). The study showed that people come to biased and erroneous conclusions, but their bias does not allow them to understand and admit it.

THE RESEARCH HAS SHOWED TWO MAJOR TRENDS:

I. THE COMPETENT TEND TO UNDERSTAND THEM

II. THE INCOMPETENT HAVE A TENDENCY TO OVERESTATE THEMSELVES

Patrick works as a programmer for a large software development company software. AT best case he can be called an average employee: the program he works on is in complete disarray, he does not meet deadlines, and after a couple of months he does not remember the code of the program he developed.

But the fact that Patrick is not very good at writing programs is not his most unpleasant feature. What annoys his boss the most is Patrick's complete conviction that he is a great programmer. Last month, he received a not very flattering written review of his work from a senior manager and was very indignant:

“I'm the best programmer in this department! You have a very strange rating system if you rate someone with my talent so low. This scale misrepresents my abilities. Maybe she, of course, evaluates something, but definitely not programming skills!

If you've ever met a person who is absolutely certain that his job is done perfectly, even though it actually failed, then chances are you've seen the Dunning-Kruger effect in action.

The name of this phenomenon was proposed by psychologists David Dunning and Justin Krueger to describe a cognitive distortion in which people who are incompetent in something are unable to realize their own incompetence. In addition to this cognitive distortion, they are characterized by a complete conviction that they are in fact very competent.

Patrick's programming skills needed improvement. If he could understand this, he would take up his own development. He would have taken it well. constructive criticism and it would be much easier to communicate with him.

Unfortunately, the results of the online survey "How do you respond to constructive criticism?" show that only 39% of employees are able to respond normally to it and take targeted actions to fix what needs to be fixed. They do not react to criticism with aggression or withdrawal, but try to understand and correct their mistakes. And what happens to the remaining 61%? Most likely, not all of them fully and completely correspond to the description of the Dunning-Kruger effect, but many react to a fair remark addressed to them in much the same way as Patrick.

The irony of the Dunning-Kruger effect is that "the knowledge and skills necessary to cope with the task, as a rule, are also needed in order to understand one's shortcomings and mistakes." If a person does not have enough intelligence to cope with a particular task, then this lack will not allow him to understand his own mistakes.

A 1999 study describing the Dunning-Kruger effect was called: “I can’t and I don’t know that I can’t. How not understanding one's own incompetence leads to inflated self-esteem. In the study, Professor Dunning and his team gave college students grammar, logic, and humor-assessment tasks. They noticed that the participants who scored the lowest tended to significantly overestimate their abilities. For example, after passing grammar test, students were asked to rate their ability to use the correct grammatical forms. As you might have guessed, those with the lowest scores on the test rated their abilities the highest. Participants in those 10% who scored the most low scores, assessed their capabilities at an average of 67%. This result reached only a third of the participants.

The Dunning-Kruger effect can be traced not only on the example of students. In another study, 32-42% of programmers rated their ability as the highest in their company. According to them, only 5% of employees had the same high performance as them. According to statistics, 21% of Americans believe that the prospect of becoming a millionaire in the next 10 years is quite real. Drivers very often rate their driving skills as very high. 68% of faculty at the University of Nebraska ranked themselves in the top 25% of teachers.

Professor Dunning, who now teaches at the University of Michigan, says that a major problem in many organizations is that employees aren't performing well simply because they don't know what it's like to work better and what it looks like. good result. Employees don't necessarily always go into a defensive position, sometimes they just lack knowledge. Dunning reports that upon learning of their poor performance, most students agreed that they lacked knowledge and were willing to fill in the gaps.

The Dunning-Kruger effect extends to employees with high abilities. Less than 50% of the 30,000 employees surveyed said they were good at their job. Only 29% of them answered that their effectiveness was at a satisfactory level. 36% reported that they are never or almost never satisfied with their job. Dunning and Krueger concluded that the more competent an employee, the higher his dissatisfaction with his job. This phenomenon is explained by the fact that high intelligence, allowing effective employees to do quality work, contributes to finding mistakes and understanding their own limitations, which leads to dissatisfaction with themselves.

Original article: Mark Murphy, - The Dunning-Kruger Effect Shows Why Some People Think They're Great Even When Their Work Is Terrible, Forbes, January, 2017

Translation: Eliseeva Margarita Igorevna

Editor: Vyacheslav Simonov

Keywords: business, work, psychology, labor psychology, coach, coaching, career, success