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More confidence, more stupidity
Why you’re not as smart as you think you are
In 1999, David Dunning and Justin Kruger described what has become known as the Dunning-Kruger effect — the cognitive bias in which people highly overestimate their ability in some area of expertise.
I can’t help but think of this effect when reading random comments on social media, especially these days, for instance about COVID-19, vaccines, 5G, and all the conspiracy theories surrounding these and other topics.
Here’s how this bias works in general. You learn of a field of expertise that is relatively new to you and you dive right in because you’re super interested in it. You learn the basics, but you know not enough of the topic to be able to judge that it’s just the basics you’ve learned, and instead, you think of yourself as quite the expert in this field.
Dunning and Kruger call the top level of overconfidence in combination with utter incompetence the Peak of Mount Stupid.
Since the effect also applies to knowledge and ability on the workfloor, I will address this and other interesting topics in my upcoming book about Essential Psychology for the Modern Workplace…
