Why do incompetent workers not notice their shortcomings? The Dunning-Kruger Effect: Why Incompetent People Think They Are Experts.

In 1999, psychologist David Dunning and his graduate student Justin Krueger published a paper in which they describe in detail a phenomenon called the Dunning-Kruger effect. There are several possible reasons for the effect. Firstly, no one wants to consider themselves below average, such people tend to overestimate their self-esteem. Secondly, some individuals find it easier to recognize ignorance in others than in themselves, and this creates the illusion that they are above average, even if they are in an equal position.

Dunning-Kruger effect: definition

The Dunning-Kruger effect is a cognitive distortion in which unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority. Scientifically, this effect describes a person's metacognitive inability to recognize their own limits. The reverse happens when a highly skilled person thinks they are not good enough.

This effect was discovered by two psychologists from Cornell University in 1999 thanks to one strange and very funny misunderstanding. One day, a man decided to rob a bank using lemon juice to hide his face. He was firmly convinced that the mask of lemon juice on his face would act like invisible ink. It is not difficult to imagine that his idea was not successful, and the man was arrested.

From what happened, psychologists concluded that people suffering from the Dunning-Kruger effect have the following features:

• do not recognize their insufficient qualifications;
• do not recognize true skill in others;
• do not recognize the finiteness of their inadequacy;
• have unlimited self-confidence.

The essence of the Dunning-Kruger effect

Dunning points out that the ignorant mind is a vessel filled with unreliable life experiences, messy theories, facts, strategies, algorithms, and conjectures, which, unfortunately, allow one to consider oneself useful and possessing accurate knowledge. The Dunning-Kruger effect is that ignorance carries with it the impossibility of accurately assessing one's own ignorance.

When a person tries to comprehend this world in which he exists with his knowledge and paradigms, he formulates ideas, and then begins to systematically look for information that confirms these ideas. It is human nature to interpret their ambiguous experiences in accordance with their own personal theories.

What is the Dunning-Kruger effect: ignorance more often gives rise to confidence than knowledge, resulting in false knowledge. And if you make an attempt to convince such people, then you can come across their distrust or even hostility.

A curious phenomenon in psychology

The Dunning-Kruger effect is not just a curious psychological phenomenon, it touches on an important aspect in the mode of human thought, a major flaw in human thinking. This applies to absolutely everyone - all people are competent in certain areas of knowledge, and at the same time they do not understand anything in other areas of life. If you look closely at the Dunning-Kruger curve, then it is worth recognizing that many imagine themselves in the upper half of this curve, and the manifestation of intelligence will be considered the recognition that everyone is in the lower half.

This pattern, however, is not the default mode, it is not fate and not a sentence. The Dunning-Kruger effect and metacognition, which is part of the skeptical philosophy, as well as the presence of critical thinking, are recognition that a person has a powerful and at the same time subtle perception. It is necessary not only to recognize this, but also periodically make a conscious effort to fight with yourself. A significant part of the journey is systematic self-doubt. At the same time, you need to understand that this is, in fact, an endless process.

The Dunning-Kruger Effect: Cognitive Bias and Self-Esteem

In addition to various aspects of critical thinking, adequate self-esteem is a skill that should be specifically aimed at developing. Usually a person does not rate the competence of another person higher than it really is, while literate people rate their own competence a level lower.

Experiments and research in this area are aimed at solving cognitive problems, including logic, grammar, humor. Interestingly, those with below-average IQ self-esteem tend to overestimate their knowledge and abilities, while those with above-average IQ tend to underestimate themselves. This is the true cognitive distortion called the Dunning-Kruger effect.

Problems of metacognition

The trouble with this world is that the stupid are always confident, while the smart are full of doubts (Bertrand Russell). Those who try to overestimate their qualifications lack the metacognition to realize their mistakes. In other words, they are too incompetent to admit their own incompetence. Improving their metacognitive skills would allow them to correctly assess their own cognitive abilities.

If we consider the Dunning-Kruger effect in more detail, then the relationship between lack of awareness and deficit of metacognitive skills is important. The findings presented by Krueger and Dunning often interpret the assumption that less competent people think they are more competent. Some consider themselves a gift from God and at the same time are quite mediocre, others are more than competent, and at the same time often demonstrate excessive modesty.

Criticism: regression to the mean

The most common criticism that the Dunning-Kruger effect has experienced is that it simply reflects regression towards the statistical mean. Regression to the mean refers to the fact that any time you select a group of individuals based on some criterion and then measure their condition in a different dimension, the level of performance will tend to shift towards the average level.

In the context of the Dunning-Kruger effect, the argument is that incompetent people show movement towards the mean when asked to evaluate their own performance, i.e. they perceive their performance relatively uncritically. When a task is difficult, most people assume that they will do worse than other people. Conversely, when the task is relatively simple, most people assume that they would do better than others.

Good afternoon, my dear readers. Have you heard of the term Dunning-Kruger Syndrome? It turns out that many suffer from it, but they themselves do not even know about it. Let's try to figure out what it is and what to do if it is available.

What it is?

Dunning-Kruger syndrome was first discussed in 1999. American social psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger have found that there are people who tend not to accurately assess themselves and their capabilities in a certain area. In other words, such individuals are prone to self-deception.

We often overestimate our abilities. As a result, illusory superiority makes incompetent people think they are superior and amazing. It has been established that the less a person of this type has knowledge and skills in a certain area, the more he considers himself an expert and a role model. Such people do not have the slightest idea and idea of ​​the extent of their stupidity.

The essence of the paradox

The main paradox is that people who know a lot, experienced and talented, because of their modesty, tend to belittle and underestimate themselves and their capabilities. Therefore, the discrepancy between the capabilities of employees and the positions they hold is a frequent occurrence in modern society.

If known to everyone is able to deprive the world of talent, then in our case, each of us can feel the negative impact of the Dunning-Kruger effect on ourselves personally.

Just imagine that we will be treated by unqualified doctors, taught by unqualified teachers, judged by unqualified judges, and so on. It's scary to think what our world can turn into in this case in a few decades.

The problem of awareness and self-esteem

Dunning and Kruger made it absolutely clear that a high level of self-importance plays a big role in the lives of many people. It is because of this that false ideas about one's own competence arise.

Each of us is subject to this feeling in one area or another. We cannot adequately assess ourselves in some cases simply because we do not have certain knowledge and skills. In other words, we do not know the rules well in order to break them with success and ingenuity.

Until we have a basic understanding of competence in a particular case, we will not even realize that we have failed. We just can't recognize it.

Communication with the brain

According to some scientists, this effect can be seen as a defensive reaction of our brain. After all, the realization of one's incompetence for people with a weak sense of self-worth becomes an emotional blow, after which depression appears and unwillingness to move forward. Scientists have given the name of such a reaction to anosognosia - the absence of a critical assessment by patients of their disease or current condition.

Science knows a case when it was impossible to explain this to a patient who lost a limb. That is, he still lived with the idea that he had all the limbs in their places. Doctors could not convey to him the opposite information. And then, when the doctor began to talk to him about a healthy hand, the patient behaved adequately and calmly. But as soon as the right hand, which he lost, was discussed, the patient ignored all talk about it. He pretended not to hear the doctor and did not understand what he was talking about.

This behavior is explained as follows. Monitoring the patient's brain activity indicates that the patient is doing this completely unconsciously. His partially damaged brain simply blocks the information that he has this kind of handicap. This happens on a subconscious level.

Scientists managed to record cases when it was impossible for blind people to explain what they do not see. This is an extreme case of anosognosia, it is confirmation that the brain deliberately blocks information about our incompetence or imperfection. And this is a kind of protective reaction from possible emotional blows. Some people find it easier to believe in the absurdity of generally accepted facts and information than to admit their own oversight, imperfection. To some extent this is understandable, but not correct.

In certain critical situations, the brain of each person tends to block information that is unpleasant for him, which can serve as a blow. If any words indicate the fallacy of our models of reality or mental judgments, the brain blocks them. In fact, in such cases, we simply ignore this information.

Thus, our own brain can keep us in a state of bias. Naturally, we can and must fight this. The main thing for the success of such a struggle is to accept the fact that we are imperfect, and therefore we can forgive ourselves for mistakes and inconsistency with some of our own standards.

Experimental confirmation of the theory

In order for the theory not to remain just a theory, a number of studies were carried out. One of them is an experiment involving students attending a psychology course at Cornell University.

The researchers proceeded from the results of the experience of their predecessors. They argued that the origins of incompetence is ignorance of the basics of a certain activity. For example, playing chess, driving a vehicle, playing billiards, etc.

They formulated a law according to which people with a low level of qualification in any industry are characterized by such features:

• reassessment of one's own strengths and capabilities;
• inability to realize the real extent of their incompetence;
• inability to adequately assess the high degree of competence in this industry of other people;
• a tendency to realize the level of one's previous incompetence after training, even if it has hardly improved.

The results of the research were published in a scientific psychological journal in December 1999. According to these figures, a curve was constructed, which confirms the results of the studies. Specialists with a more or less high level of competence almost always tend to underestimate their capabilities in any area. Whereas people with the lowest level of it, on the contrary, almost always consider themselves experts, consummate professionals.

Historical facts

By carefully analyzing the above principle and remembering history, we can identify people who understood this even in those distant times. They observed this phenomenon and boldly declared it.

These are famous people such as:

• Confucius: "True knowledge lies in knowing the limits of one's ignorance";
• Lao Tzu: “He who knows does not speak; he who speaks does not know”;
• Socrates: "I know that I know nothing, and others do not know this either."

What to do?

What to do to check and evaluate your own competence?

First, you need to ask about it from those who are really qualified in this area. After all, it is specialists who can adequately assess the knowledge and capabilities of a third party. Feel free to ask for a rating. After all, then you will be able to identify weaknesses for yourself and, if you wish, increase your level of competence.

Secondly, you should continue to study all the time. After all, the more knowledge we can accumulate, the less likely it is that the level of our competence will be in question. Even with a lack of time, you can find a way to deepen your knowledge with the help of online and offline courses, seminars, etc.

If desired, anyone can get rid of this state. The main thing is a strong desire and perseverance in achieving the plan. After all, we often self-sabotage ourselves and do not even realize it. look here are the free video tutorials and you will be even closer to achieving your dreams.

Conclusion

In addition to this article, I'm talking about developing your character strengths.

I hope you learned something new from this article and outlined for yourself a vector of actions in the direction you need. Good luck and see you in the next articles. All the best to you!

The material was prepared by Yulia Gintsevich.

Experiment #1

Experiment #2

Experiment #3

And then it turned out that:

• 
  
  

Dunning-Kruger effect.

What to do?

Where was Yuri Gagarin born?

The corporate is approaching its climax. Marya Ivanovna, the chief accountant, gets up from the table:

Friends! I recently wrote a poem...

There are awkward lines. Employees blush and look away. At this moment, I want to run away, hide, or at least fall through the ground. When the “moment of poetry” ends, everyone applauds with relief.

Marya Ivanovna is an excellent accountant, but she doesn't know a damn thing about poetry. The paradox is that she herself is unlikely to be able to understand the full extent of her mediocrity. Why? Let's figure it out.

Dunning, Kruger and the Ig Nobel Prize

In 1995, American MacArthur Wheeler committed a daring robbery of two banks at once. He did not even try to hide his face, and therefore was captured in all its glory by surveillance cameras. The robber was shown on the evening news, and an hour later he was detained by the police.

When they came for Wheeler, he was amazed:

But I smeared my face with lemon juice!

The unlucky criminal sincerely believed that such a simple manipulation would make him invisible to video cameras.

This curious case inspired psychologists Justin Krueger and David Dunning to conduct a series of experiments. Scientists decided to test their hypothesis, which read:

Incompetent people cannot realize their incompetence because they are not competent enough to do so.

Psychologists traditionally decided to put their experiments on hungry American students. And here's what happened:

Experiment #1 The students were first asked to rate their sense of humor. Then they were given 30 jokes each and asked to rate them on an 11-point scale (1 point - not at all funny, 11 points - very funny). For control, psychologists used the ratings of these jokes by famous comedians.

It turned out that students who were proud of their sense of humor were bad at distinguishing funny jokes from unfunny ones. And those who really had a sense of humor lowered their self-esteem.

Experiment #2 Students were seated to solve logical problems. This time they were asked not only to evaluate their abilities, but to compare themselves with their classmates. Students also had to predict how well they would do on a task.

The result was the same: the capable students showed modesty, while the incompetent students gave themselves high scores.

Experiment #3 The next was the English grammar test. The experiment was carried out in the same way as the previous one, but with one difference: after the test, the students were shown the solutions of other participants and asked to rate them. Then they were asked to evaluate their abilities again.

And then it turned out that:

"Excellent students" after getting acquainted with other people's work increased their self-esteem. But the self-esteem of losers has not changed and still remained high.

"Excellent students" gave other people's work a more accurate assessment than "losers".

The cards always had letters on one side and numbers on the other. The participants were told the rule: "If there is a vowel on one side of the card, then there is an even number on the other." Then they asked: which cards need to be turned over to find out if this rule is observed?

(Try to solve this problem yourself).

Turn over cards A and 7

When the students responded, they were again asked to rate their abilities. And the result, of course, was the same as before.

The psychologists then divided the subjects into two groups. The first group was seated to solve a test that had nothing to do with the task. And for the second group, scientists conducted a mini-course on formal logic. As a result, students from the second group assessed their abilities more accurately.

So, what did psychologists find out as a result of these experiments?

• Incompetent people cannot correctly assess their competence (which was required to be proven).
  Incompetent people cannot correctly assess the competence of others.
  If a person's competence has increased, then his self-esteem becomes more objective.

Thus, a new cognitive distortion was discovered, which was called Dunning-Kruger effect.

However, it is unlikely that psychologists could "surprise Odessa with this joke." Even 2.5 thousand years before these experiments, Lao Tzu uttered his famous aphorism:

The one who speaks does not know, the one who knows does not speak.

And here is what Charles Darwin wrote in the 19th century:

Ignorance breeds confidence more often than knowledge.

Obviously, the scientific community was of the same opinion. In 2000, Dunning and Krueger received the Ig Nobel Prize for their discovery, which is awarded for the most dubious scientific achievements. For example, together with American psychologists, the award was received by:

Physicist Andrei Geim, for levitating frogs with a magnet.
Dutch doctors, for tomography of the genitals during intercourse.
Programmer Chris Niswander, for a program that detects when a cat is walking on a keyboard.

But this does not mean at all that the discovery of psychologists was useless. First, Dunning and Krueger scientifically proved what the thinkers of the past had always guessed. Secondly, they again drew attention to such an inexhaustible phenomenon as human stupidity.

Where does the Dunning-Kruger effect occur?

The Dunning-Kruger effect is most noticeable in public people. These include movie and television stars, politicians and artists, Internet bloggers and big businessmen. In a word, these are all those who are not afraid to dump their "rich inner world" on public display.

At the same time, it is the stupid actions and statements of public people that attract the most attention. Which is not surprising: the contemplation of someone else's stupidity has always been one of the most popular entertainments of mankind.

A less noticeable, but more global manifestation of the Dunning-Kruger effect is graphomania. At the moment, over 760,000 authors are registered on the site Poetry.ru alone, which roughly corresponds to the population of Bhutan. But if we randomly open some poem from the tape of works, then with a probability of 90% we will stumble upon another Marya Ivanovna from our example.

Graphomaniacs sincerely believe in their talent. They dream of the glory of Pushkin and Leo Tolstoy, but they don’t even realize that both poetry and writing skills take years to learn.

The era of high technology has given rise to a new analogue of graphomania - digital photography. Plot? Composition? Forget about it! To feel like a pro, today it is enough to get a SLR camera and learn how to apply a few vintage effects. The "golden age" of crooked collages and littered horizons has come. And, apparently, it will end very soon.

The most unpleasant thing is that even very smart people often get sick with the Dunning-Kruger effect. To do this, it is enough for them to climb into those areas in which they are incompetent. And as a result:

A mathematician publishes bullshit history books.
A brain morphologist writes dubious treatises on human origins.
A metallurgical engineer undertakes to expose the American lunar program.
Doctor of Philology teaches people how to become healthy.

And this list, unfortunately, can be continued for a very long time.

What to do?

The Dunning-Kruger effect looks funny, but only until the moment when we do not encounter it personally. And when our knowledge and experience breaks against the wall of someone else's ignorance, it can throw us off balance for a long time.

I don’t know how to act in such cases “according to science”, but I can tell you about my algorithm of actions. When faced with the Dunning-Kruger effect, I usually ask myself five questions:

1. Is it definitely not about me? Is my boss really a “brainless tyrant”, or is it something I didn’t understand in this life? Is my interlocutor an ignoramus, or is it I who do not know some important nuances?

It is worth remembering that the Dunning-Kruger effect works both ways. And if we resent someone else's incompetence, it can also mean that we ourselves are incompetent.

2. Is my opponent worthy of sympathy? Sometimes the struggle for truth makes us unnecessarily cruel. But very often someone else's stupidity or mediocrity is not so much a vice as a disease.

We do not scold children for clumsy drawings and stupid judgments. Why, then, do we react so aggressively to those whose minds or talents have forever remained in childhood?

3. Can the dispute be avoided? An argument can only be won when it comes to easily verifiable facts. For example:

Where was Yuri Gagarin born?
- Who said "You can't live in society and be free from society"?
How old was Alexander the Great when he died?

In other cases, it will be a dispute about tastes and an endless transfusion from empty to empty. My great-grandmother used to say: "Whoever argues, he is not worth it." The woman was wise.

4. Do you need to speak for the audience? For example, if our opponent on the Internet carries convincing nonsense, then sometimes it is still worth writing a detailed and correct answer. But not for him (we are unlikely to convince him), but for those who follow our debate. It is possible that for them these arguments will become decisive.

5. Is it possible to determine the true motives of the opponent? Even the most irrational and stupid human behavior has quite understandable reasons. And if we can figure them out, it will be easier for us to change the situation and avoid unnecessary conflicts.

Suppose a boss asks us to go to a corporate website and put an ugly illustration in the background. In fact, he does not care about this picture: he is afraid that a site with a white background will look like competitors' sites. But in order to figure it out and come up with a smarter solution, you need to ask your boss the right questions, not start a useless argument with him.

The most important thing when dealing with incompetent people is not to succumb to emotions. Keep your composure and may the Force be with you!

Dunning-Kruger effect January 21st, 2016

In general, this is in simple words about the obvious, but still. In simple terms, it can be formulated something like this - a stupid person makes mistakes, but cannot realize his mistake due to 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 Kruger called the famous statements of 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 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. 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, 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."

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 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 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 of the human brain confirms the condition 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 the 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- the absence of a critical assessment by the patient 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 - the patient's personality or 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 -

A person lives through perception, and everything that he perceives in the world around him, he perceives through his senses. Everything that a person sees, hears and feels is converted into sensory data and enters his brain, after which he evaluates these data, categorizes and sends an impulse to consciousness to make one or another decision, which determines his future actions and deeds.

For example, if the nerve endings on the fingers send information to the human brain that he is touching fire, he will instantly remove his hand from its source. If a person is in danger, he automatically takes action to avoid it or defend himself. If a person sees that the traffic light at the pedestrian crossing is red, he will not cross the road, but wait for the green one.

Any rules on the basis of which the human brain makes decisions are commonly called mental models - ideas in its mind about the structure of the surrounding world. And each mental model requires that a person has a clear idea of ​​​​its correspondence to reality. We all know this correspondence as objectivity. For example, the idea of ​​a person that if they throw an empty plastic bottle into the trash and thereby clean up the world's oceans of pollution, is not objective. But the idea that a jump into the open sea to a flock of sharks will inevitably lead to death is the most consistent with objectivity.

But, despite this very objectivity, the human brain in a number of cases is capable of making peculiar errors in the perception of reality. In science, such errors are called, and in this article we will talk about one of them - a metacognitive distortion (related to the sphere of what a person knows about himself) called the Dunning-Kruger effect.

The Dunning-Kruger effect is a metacognitive distortion, where people with low cognition overestimate them, and people with high cognition, vice versa. In other words, in the mind of a person there are certain mental models in which he fully believes, even if they do not correspond to reality, i.e. his subjective representations replace objective reality.

Speaking of the Dunning-Kruger effect, one cannot fail to mention the story with which, in general, as they say, "it all started."

Once a man named MacArthur Wheeler, who lived in Pittsburgh, disregarding any means of disguise, committed two bank robberies in the middle of the day. As it should be, the banks had surveillance cameras that captured the face of our hero, thanks to which the local police could easily detain him. The fact that the police could immediately find Wheeler perplexed him, and after his arrest he was still surprised: how was he found, because he smeared his face with lemon juice (shortly before that, someone told him that lemon juice makes a person invisible to camerasJ)?!

Funny, isn't it? But the fact is that Wheeler was sure that after he smeared his face with lemon juice, the cameras would not be able to "see" him. This confidence was the reason that he went to rob banks without an elementary mask or at least a stocking on his head. For a normal person, this situation is absurd. But for this robber, his "invisibility" was an irrefutable fact. His bias was his subjective certainty - this is a special case of the Dunning-Kruger effect.

Two researchers of human behavior - David Dunning and Justin Krueger - became interested in the above event - they decided to study the interesting phenomenon in more detail. They were interested, of course, not in the bank robbery itself, but in the difference between the actual abilities of a person and his individual perception of them.

Subsequently, Dunning and Krueger hypothesized that people with low abilities face two kinds of difficulties:

• They make bad decisions due to their low abilities.
• Not able to realize that the decisions made are wrong

To confirm their hypothesis, the scientists conducted relevant studies with a group of people who first had to complete a test task designed to measure their abilities in a particular area (, grammar or), and then assume the degree of their knowledge and skills in this area.

Thanks to this study, the following experimental data were obtained:

• People with a low level of abilities were prone to their significant overestimation, and the lower the level of abilities, the higher their subjective assessment;
• People with a high level of ability, on the contrary, underestimated their potential. This was largely due to the fact that if a certain task seemed simple to a person, he believed that it was simple for all other people.

This was followed by the second stage of the experiment: the participants were asked to study the test results of the other subjects, and then re-assess their abilities.

People with a high level of ability, comparing themselves with others, realized that in fact they are better than they initially thought about themselves. Based on this, they adjusted their self-esteem and in the future they assessed themselves much more objectively.

And people with a low level of abilities did not change their self-esteem at all, because. could not agree that other people are "better" than them, and that their level of ability is significantly inferior to the level of the first.

findings

The findings of research conducted by Dunning and Krueger are as follows: incompetent people, as a rule, are not aware of their incompetence, and greatly overestimate their abilities and capabilities, while not recognizing the abilities of other people, and without changing their self-esteem. It is these people who, so to speak, "suffer" from the Dunning-Kruger effect. It was experimentally possible to find out that incompetent people make incompetent decisions and draw erroneous conclusions, and their incompetence is an obstacle to understanding and recognizing these objective facts.

This, in turn, allows us to draw another conclusion - that the human brain protects him through incompetence, which is so pleasant for him. And here it would be appropriate to talk about a condition called anosognosia - the patient's lack of a critical view of his disease.

An example is a situation where a person who for some reason has lost an organ is sure that he still has this organ, and it is impossible for him to prove the real state of affairs. When a doctor talks to this person about the organs that he has, so to speak, available, the communication goes quite normally. However, when the conversation turns to the topic of an organ that a person does not have, he immediately begins to pretend that he does not hear the doctor.

It is also interesting that studies of brain activity have shown that a person begins to behave in this way unconsciously, because. his brain automatically blocks information that indicates that a person has a certain defect, even before the moment when it reaches his consciousness. There were even precedents in medicine when a blind person could not be explained in any way that he was blind. This is, of course, the most extreme case of anosognosia, but it shows that the human brain can do everything in its power to ignore information that indicates the incompetence of its "master".

So in the case of the “lemon robber”, everything turned out in a similar way: it was much easier and more pleasant for him to believe that the video recording of his robbery was fabricated than to agree that he had committed one of the most ridiculous and stupid acts not only in his life, but also for the entire history of robberies, thus proving his bias and incompetence.

Something can happen to each of us when it is much more comfortable for our brain to react to objective information, simply ignoring it, leaving us alone with our bias and incompetence. But do we really need it? Perhaps we should learn to face the truth and accept ourselves for who we are, doing everything in our power to become the best we can be?

We only choose...