Revisiting why incompetents think they’re awesome (2012)

http://arstechnica.com/science/2012/05/revisiting-why-incompetents-think-theyre-awesome/

by ColinWright • 13 years ago

68 62 13 years ago

arstechnica.com

mhurron2• 13 years ago

That's interesting, but I actually am awesome.

general_failure• 13 years ago

I was thinking the same.

lotsofcows• 13 years ago

That's the nicest compliment I've seen on HN. Good on you!

mhurron2• 13 years ago

I do appreciate your appreciation.

bjelkeman-again• 13 years ago

Do you have a citation for that? ;)

eterm• 13 years ago

Title could do with a [2012].

I've noticed a tendency for people who are average but think they're awesome to declare how rubbish they think they are in an odd appeal to Dunning-Kruger.

purringmeow• 13 years ago

How do you know they think they are awesome? Maybe they are aware of their limitations and try to keep their ego at bay by reminding themselves about Dunning-Kruger's statement?

bradleysmith2• 13 years ago

from the article, Dunning said:

"the Dunning-Kruger effect, as it’s been come to be called, is that one should pause to worry about one’s own certainty, not the certainty of others."

perhaps an average mind would poo poo themselves as a reaction to that uncertainty.

I like to think I am statedly and knowingly un-average, but not above average in very much at all. There are so many simple tasks that I know exactly how bad I am at (painting, framing work, basic db admin) that I'm happy to laugh at my own incompetence. Perhaps this is also rationalization of some kind of average-ness. Mediocrity can be scary.

Made me think of this: “The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.” ― Stephen Hawking

bradleysmith2• 13 years ago

cited paper from Cornell:

Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.64....

EDIT: accent title

praptak3• 13 years ago

Title repeats an oft-repeated misrepresentation of what the Dunning-Kruger study actually demonstrated. See http://www.talyarkoni.org/blog/2010/07/07/what-the-dunning-k...

Key sentence: "Unfortunately, Kruger and Dunning never actually provided any support for this type of just-world view; their studies categorically didn’t show that incompetent people are more confident or arrogant than competent people. What they did show is this: [image showing their data, followed by explanation of what regression towards mean is]"

maxerickson2• 13 years ago

I always thought the best conclusion to draw from Dunning-Kruger was the low value of self assessment.

sp332• 13 years ago

Right, if you're not good at something, you're probably also not good at assessing how good you are.

cwp2• 13 years ago

Actually, the title doesn't make that claim either. It just mentions "incompetents think they're awesome," without claiming that they're more confident than competent people.

If you have to boil the paper down to a handful or words, this title isn't bad. It highlights the interesting bit, which will help people who've heard about Dunning-Kruger remember it. And if the reader is familiar with the misrepresentation of Dunning-Kruger, they'll learn something by reading the article.

(You did read the article, right? It specifically mentions this misconception. Key sentence: 'The findings of Dunning and Kruger are being reduced to "Stupid people are so stupid that they don't know they are stupid."' And since you read the article, the title did it's job.)

romaniv• 13 years ago

If someone said "my front left tire is flat", most people would assume that other tires are okay. That's not an error in reasoning, as some pedants would claim, it's just the way natural language works. So yes, the title is written to imply exactly what you say it doesn't claim.

praptak3• 13 years ago

If I had to boil the paper down to a handful of words it would be "people tend to err towards the average in their self-assessment."

dschiptsov• 13 years ago

Something other than inappropriate feedback due to absence of any strong performers in the immediate environment to compare with, plus reality distortion/denial and unwilling to look farther around?

People who have managed to read two or three books in a whole life (well, one of them three times) are absolutely sure that reading is a total waste of time and should be even forbidden, while they are totally convinced that if they might be not the best person on earth (due to some external, uncontrollable misfortunes), but definitely right at the top of the whole humanity. Why, we have a full country of these.)

dferlemann2• 13 years ago

I find competency does not correlate well with level of confidence. Therefore, being confident does not mean incompetence. IMHO, confidence is a state of mind, and competence is a state of being. A lot of people get them mixed up. I know really competent people always think they are inadequate therefore don't even try to ask for the promotion they well deserve, then realize some incompetent guy bloated himself/herself into that position and quit afterwards. It's a shame really.

Florin_Andrei2• 13 years ago

Good point.

Isn't the DK effect something that should be expected, given how the human mind works? To keep plowing ahead despite adversity, you need to have some trust in your abilities. It seems as if erring slightly in favor of over-estimating yourself might be beneficial for motivation - as long as the error remains small.

jckt• 13 years ago

Assuming the un-promoted person is pretty good at judging people's expertise as well, as per the DK study. In your experience, do you think incompetents' promotions tend to increase or decrease the confidence of the competents'?

dferlemann2• 13 years ago

It depends on the person. Some after that worked hard not only on technical expertise but also on self-esteem. Some were indignant and convinced themselves they don't want that job anyway, all people on that level are incompetent managers.

Some people focus a lot more to be good at the job/skill, incompetent ones focus more on promoting him or herself. Result is quite obvious in short-run.

Being competent on a skill or certain job does not really correlate well with being competent on knowing thyself, either. I guess a lot of people are trying to find out what they really want, thus during that pursue become more competent. Incompetent people know very well they want, that promotion, and willing to cheat in order to get it.

People both competent in skills and self knowledge tend to become more confident. That's the kind of confidence both solid and humbling. Not some empty bubble can't carry any weight that can only exist in big company environment.

parennoob2• 13 years ago

[Disclaimer: This is just an opinion.]

I think a large part of this has to do with cultural attitude, and how projecting yourself as unnecessarily positive pays off in American culture. I bet most of the studies in that paper were done in the US, or at least in the West, and would have shown different results in a different culture.

In the US, saying something like "Oh yeah, I want to be pretty good at it, maybe a bit better than average." is considered a recipe for failure. Every parent seems to think that their kid is special, top of the class, Ivy League material with perfect scores everywhere.

As a result, you get a large number of peoplewho self-assess overly highly, amongst whom there are a few competent people. Also, with the tendency to not actually describe people at their appropriate level, there tends to be a sort of arms race with people evaluating themselves higher and higher. So an 'average' person becomes 'wonderful', and a 'good' person becomes 'stratospheric'.

dhaneshnm• 13 years ago

I have to agree with you being an immigrant.If they have conducted the same study in different cultures,they would have found contradictory results.For example,the over emphasis given to the more experienced and older people may make senior staff over access their ability in a professional setting.

buckbova2• 13 years ago

Where are you from? I've been to the Ukraine and those folks had a pretty high opinion of themselves.

KingMob• 13 years ago

Former cognitive neuroscientist here. Yes, what you're describing, the illusory superiority effect, was originally demonstrated in Westerners, but found not to replicate as well in Asian cultures.

j_baker3• 13 years ago

What exactly are "Westerners" and what exactly are "Asian cultures" in the context of the research you speak of?

j_baker3• 13 years ago

Narcissism is the very definition of a first-world problem. As a personality style, it's far more prevalent in advanced societies. Once you get beyond mere survival, you start seeking self-actualization, which means people start trying to fulfill their own potential. This is a double-edged sword. On one hand, societies that are more narcissistic (like the US) allow individuals to do more things for society on their own. On the other hand, societies that are narcissistic expect people to do more.

Florin_Andrei2• 13 years ago

On the other hand, societies that are narcissistic expect people to do more.

And also have a very skewed perception of reality. It's pretty easy to have large swaths of population premising their entire world view on what is essentially self-serving mythology.

It's almost like the human psyche needs some amount of adversity to stay healthy. The cat that is too fat is also probably slightly insane, or at least unrealistic - it's only after you rub its nose into the dirt that it comes back to its senses.

(That came out more blunt than I intended, but the general idea is the same.)

marcosdumay• 13 years ago

In the US, saying something like "Oh yeah, I want to be pretty good at it, maybe a bit better than average." is considered a recipe for failure.

To be fair, you used the wrong example. Saying something like that IS a recipe for failure - there are too many areas that somebody could decide to become good at; becomming just above average on your choosen area means you are about worthless.

And that's another problem with people's perception. Exceptionalism is the rule, people are diverse.

parennoob2• 13 years ago

I guess it depends upon what you consider. For example, when I first take a dance class, my attitude is "let get the basics straight, maybe I can learn to do some basic moves and hold my own."

I have seen way too many people who expect to be Fred Astaire within 5 weeks, and then end up dancing horribly.

smaddali• 13 years ago

I wonder how Dunning-Kruger effect impacts entrepreneurs/Startups. I contend that the founders need to exhibit certain amount of Dunning-Kruger at the initial stages. Otherwise how would one take on any large impossible goals venturing into unknown domains. But when they start exploring and getting into thick of things, they become less and less susceptible to this effect as they get feedback from the system and put in efforts to improve their skills.

ryandvm• 13 years ago

I thought I was suffering from the Dunning-Kruger effect, but it turns out that I am just a moron.

coldcode• 13 years ago

As a programmer my understanding of psychology is incompetent. Computers make sense to me, people rarely do.

3minus1• 13 years ago

The paper gave voice to an observation that people make about their peers, but that they don’t know how to express

I think Alexander Pope expressed it well when he wrote "A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing."

err4nt• 13 years ago

The Incompetent Co-Worker: I once worked with a guy who constantly made a giant mess out of everything he touched. I later found out his last name was a verb at all of the competitors around town for 'to mess something up', and over the course of my job shifted from working alongside him to simply putting out all of the fires he created as fast as he could start new ones. My productivity _appeared_ to go down, while he was always ready to take on a new project (before handing it off to me in a mess). The worst thing he did while I was there was delete all of our copies of an entire website we had been working on for months, only a week before launch. He would also edit documents live using in-browser editors (with no undo history) and when he made a mistake we would LOSE code and have to re-write sections. He was always viewed as the hero, yet nobody seemed to realize that all of the issues he (eventually sometimes) solved were self-created and preventable.

The incompetent IT guys: At my college we ran a number of PC labs and a number of Mac labs. The guys in IT clearly had training enough to _use_ macs, but they really didn't understand the concepts of network administration. We were a design program and one of the requirements was that we be able to install custom fonts for use in projects. One day people got to class the morning a massive project was due and nobody could open their project files to print them! I discovered that the _user_ font folder had simply been replaced with a shortcut to the _system_ font folder, and we didn't have the permission to restore it. So they had deleted every users custom fonts already, and now after I discovered and proved their error they had to restore it to the way it was. They looked like _heros_ for fixing the big problem on the worst day, but ultimately it was only their incompetence that created the problem in the first place. Their reasoning was that TTF fonts can sometimes carry viruses within them that infect Windows computers… (And we use OTF fonts on OS X)

leokun• 13 years ago

In the case of the coworker it seems like you could have documented each of these specific cases and confronted the person about it. How do you talk your way out of losing data repeatedly?

randallsquared• 13 years ago

Some people can talk their way out of almost anything. I've personally had my mind changed about something that was totally obvious; it's a pretty bizarre experience, looking back. Sometimes it takes hours or days for the reality distortion field to wear off.

specialist• 13 years ago

Who would you tell?

I've had exactly one boss who understood (some) of what I do.

Managing others, I've been completely snowed by people who's work is outside of my areas of expertise (tech writing, translation, graphic design, etc).

zw123456• 13 years ago

Great story, like a lot of people, I can relate. There is another type of worker that I run into a lot. The type that actually screws things up on purpose. I call this the "Red Sock Effect". When I was growing up, my Mom and Dad got into a big fight over who would do my Dad's Laundry. Mom relented and agreed to do his shirts. Now keep in mind, back in those days, dudes could not be seen in a pink shirt. Mom "accidentally" tossed a red sock into the wash with Dad's white shirts so they came out pink. From then on, there were no more arguments, Dad took his shirts to the cleaners. At work, I run into the "red sockers" all the time. They feign incompetence and as a consequence, management takes work from them and gives it to those that are competent.

mattholtom• 13 years ago

Haha! This article is doing a number on my impostor syndrome.

mortehu• 13 years ago

How can a person claim to suffer from impostor syndrome?

Ensorceled2• 13 years ago

I know, rationally, that I'm competent. That does not prevent me from feeling like an impostor and having nagging self-doubts.

thaumasiotes3• 13 years ago

That said, spotting an expert outside of one’s field is a task one can become better at. And that’s important, given just how much information, good and bad, is not available to people. For example, is the expert associated with a university (a good sign) or some 'think tank' (a bad sign)?" Again, though, this takes experience and expertise. Groups like think tanks try to give themselves the trappings of expertise in a move specifically designed to fool us into trusting their statements.

This bothered me. I recall someone's response to a politician's rhetorical question as to why there were conservative think tanks but no liberal ones: "You already have them. They're called universities!"

The heuristic that tells you statements from someone affiliated to a university are more credible, and statements from someone affiliated to a think tank are less credible, will inevitably inform you that the US left is correct and the US right is wrong. It seems too crude to be useful in any area where think tanks operate.

cia_plant2• 13 years ago

You seem to think that an organized political group being pretty consistently wrong is a reductio ad adsurdum...?

thaumasiotes3• 13 years ago

I think they're both consistently wrong. I don't agree that affiliation with a university is a positive indicator if the subject is one that might be covered by a think tank.

But yes, I also think the viewpoint your comment suggests ("of course one side is always right and the other one isn't") lends a certain worthlessness to the person expressing it.

gaius• 13 years ago

There are tons of left wing think thanks, tho'. In fact people regularly complain to the BBC due to their habit of calling Reform say a "right wing think tank" but the Fabian Society just a "think tank" implying neutrality and objectivity.

JeremyMorgan• 13 years ago

I think that my understanding of my chosen skillset / profession is good enough to know that I am not in, or anywhere near the top percentile for it.

I'm guessing intelligence isn't the prevailing factor here. It has more to do with awareness and self acceptance.

jackgavigan• 13 years ago

Isn't Dunning-Kruger simply stage one of the Four Stages of Competence? [1]

1. Unconscious incompetence - I think I'm awesome but I'm actually incompetent.

2. Conscious incompetence - I know I'm incompetent.

3. Conscious competence - I can do it but I have to concentrate really hard (probably with my tongue out[2]).

4. Unconscious competence - These aren't the droids you're looking for.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_stages_of_competence

[2] http://jackmathis.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/concentrati...

Revisiting why incompetents think they’re awesome (2012)

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