To know that you do not know, is the best. To think you know. when you do not, is a disease…
— Lao Tzu
I wrote about the Dunning-Kruger Effect a few years ago… back when I knew hardly anything about it. As I recall, I even admitted that I knew hardly anything about it. But that has never stopped me.
Basically, the Effect was “discovered” by psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger in 1999, by testing 65 Cornell University undergraduates from a variety of courses in psychology, who earned extra credit for their participation. The undergraduates were tested to see if they held an accurate assessment of their intellectual abilities. The psychologists concluded that the less you know about grammar, logic and humor, the more likely you were to overestimate your abilities.
They also concluded that the more you know about these subjects, the more likely you are to underestimate your abilities.
Put into everyday language, stupid people are less likely to know how stupid they are, while at the same time, the smartest people are prone to underestimate how intelligent they are.
Curiously, the undergrads who scored “average” on the tests, had the most accurate assessments of their intelligence.
As I mentioned, I wrote about this Effect a few years ago, but then came upon an article in Inc. magazine by a certified expert named Jessica Stillman, with the headline, “The Dunning-Kruger Effect Has Been Cited for 26 Years, but Most People Still Misunderstand It”.
The subheader: “The lesson isn’t that dumb people are overconfident, according to its co-creator. It’s that you are.”
So, like, I am? Over confident? Is she kidding?
She then quotes psychologist David Dunning, who is apparently having second thoughts about having published his 1999 paper, as he has come to realize how a person’s writing can get misinterpreted. He has advice for all of us, if we want to avoid delusions of grandeur. “Check your ideas with another person.”
Maybe he’s realized, 26 years later, that he doesn’t know as much as he thinks he knows?
Although Ms. Stillman may be a subject matter expert, she still allowed a misleading subheader to be used with her article.
“The lesson isn’t that dumb people are overconfident, according to its co-creator. It’s that you are.”
I read the paper by Dunning and Kruger, (which you can download here) and they very specifically conclude that the least competent college students in their study were generally the most overconfident. They were too incompetent to know how incompetent they were.
But we’ve known about this problem forever. The Greeks knew it. Hebrews knew it. The Persians knew it. The Hindus knew it. The Chinese knew it.
The only people who didn’t know it are not around any longer. So thank heavens that we have a scientific paper by Dunning and Kruger.
We also have a poem by Alexander Pope, from 1711. It reads in part:
A little Learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring…
The first sentence is easy to understand. But who the hell knows what the Pierian Spring is? Or why we shouldn’t taste it?
My main complaint about the Dunning-Kruger study has to do with the fact that they asked the 65 undergraduates about humor. I think I know a little about humor — since it’s my job — but knowing a little about something is dangerous. How did Dunning and Kruger imagine that 65 college students knew anything about what’s funny and what’s not funny, by having them read some jokes? Had these students ever studied humor writing? I don’t think they even teach that in schools.
This part of the study makes me think that Dunning and Kruger were themselves incompetent.
The fact is, the Dunning-Kruger study appears to be itself a joke, but no one laughed. What does that say about all of us?
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all. You can read more stories on his Substack account.