DUNNING-KRUGER EFFECT: THE PARADOX OF DELL

“I know I do not know,” said Socrates. “A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool” wrote Shakespeare.

For centuries we have known we cannot know everything and this is generally accepted. Nevertheless very often we say: “It’s so simple!” when we don’t know enough about a subject. That is called “Dunning – Kruger Effect”.

WHAT IS IT ABOUT?

The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias studied for the first time by psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger in 1999 at the Cornell University. It consists in people with low ability at a task overestimating their own ability. It is related to the cognitive bias of illusory superiority and comes from the inability of people to recognize their lack of ability. This phenomenon occurs also when we are convinced of a certain thing.

“Huston, we have a problem!” a lot  of people know this famous sentence; what if I tell you it isn’t exact?  The words actually spoken, initially by Jack Swigert, were "Okay, Houston, we've had a problem here". It is a perfect example, isn’t it?

THE ORIGIN OF THE INVESTIGATION

This effect is interesting, but how they came to study this phenomenon is even more interesting.

In 1995, a man called McCarter Willer decided to rob a bank. That isn’t strange. However, he entered the bank with no mask, and when the police arrested him, he was surprised. He defended himself by saying: “I sprinkled myself with lemon juice. I should have been invisible!” it’s funny and foolish for us, but very interesting for our psychologists, who wanted to understand what he meant.

Briefly, a friend had told Willer that if he sprinkled lemon juice on a paper, the ink would become invisible and wouldn’t reappear unless it was exposed to a heat source. So Willer thought that could be possible also with his face.

They concluded that was possible because he didn’t know enough about the subject (“optics”) to understand that he didn’t know enough (the paradox of dell). Therefore, this effect is called “Dunning -Kruger Effect”

DUNNING-KRUGER EFFECT NOWADAYS

As we have seen, everyone can be victim of this bias, but there are groups of people who live daily by adopting this effect as their lifestyle. I’m talking about the infamous “Haters”.

Haters are those people who really love to express their opinions, above all when they don’t know anything about a topic or better, when they have read an article (often fake news, according to their QI), without reading up about it. The results are  divided among people who follow them (same QI), people who quarrel with them (modern heroes) and people who ignore them (holy people).

It isn’t an article about haters, but I want to point out that also my sarcasm is a consequence of  the Dunning-Kruger effect, due to the presumption to be above them.

THE DOWNSIDE OF THE DUNNING-KRUGER EFFECT

The Dunning-Kruger effect doesn’t work only on the ignorant people, on the contrary! When someone knows a lot about a  subject they tend  to persistently notice a fail, an error, an imperfection on their work and on the work of others. That often leads not to conclude anything, to demotivate both the others and ourselves.

Moreover,  they could be so sure about a thing that they refuse any other opinion, they even  refuse the idea of considering it. The earth revolves around the sun and not vice versa, but human beings spent a lot of time to convince themelves it was true because the Bible said the opposite. The earth isn’t flat, and yet the “Flat Earth Society” exists to maintain that isn’t true!

SO, HOW TO BYPASS THE BIAS?

To overcome this bias is difficult, but not impossible. We could simply put aside our prejudices and be open-minded, we should question everything, every idea. Above all, we could learn that hardly ever there is one possible answer.  Everything can change and  no one is perfect. Therefore, give everyone the possibility to discuss, to express their ideas freely, and give us the same possibility.  But, of course,  before we must get informed  on a topic!

Did you know of the Dunning-Kruger effect? Do you think you have ever  suffered  from biases?  Tell us in the comment section below.

JACO