The Dunning Kruger Effect – a treat to
society?
I think everyone has experienced it: Loud people with over
boarding self-confidence capturing every discussion. They
(from their perspective) know everything, see themselves as
educated and as result, their opinion is superior to others.
Especially scholarly persons tend to behave this way from my
experience as a scholar person by myself. They see their
opinion not as something personal but as an objective fact
with a claim to universal validity. But if you look just a little
bit behind their arguments expressed with so much confidence, you will not see much more than superficial
knowledge, simplifications, phrases, moralizations, and other
things you do not want to have in a well-founded debate.
The social psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger
describe this phenomenon as a form of cognitive bias within
the self-perception of incompetent people being unable to
judge themselves realistically. They tend to overestimate their
own abilities, fail to acknowledge the superior abilities of
others, and to be unable to correctly estimate the extent of
their incompetence.
This graph describes the relationship between
(self-)confidence and acquired knowledge over time when
engaging with a new topic. If a person is getting little
information about the respective topic, e.g. by one or two
articles in a newspaper or reports on TV, it appears to be quite
simple, easily understandable, with clear solutions. A person
with this little extent of knowledge can be called a simpleton,
and this person will be more likely very self-confident about
her knowledge since the respective topic appears so easily
graspable, at least on her limited knowledge. One example
may be a person explaining the Ukraine conflict started on
February 24th, 2022 and Russia is the only one to blame since
it started the war. When a simpleton becomes interested and
digs deeper into the topic, e.g. with his own internet research
and by reading different sources with varying political
agendas, he more and more realizes the topic is way more
complex and complicated than initially thought and that there
are different perspectives. The complexity and amount of
information become more and more an apparently
unsurmountable wall, so despite gaining more and more
knowledge and becoming a knowing student, the selfconfidence drops. For example, a person digging deeper into
the history before Russia’s attack on Ukraine, reading proWestern sources as well as pro-Russian ones, may be confused
about the complete opposing information and not sure which
she should believe. There may be a point where all confidence
is shattered and this is the moment when many people give
up. But if a person continues gaining knowledge, the context
of the topic will become clearer and clearer, the confidence
will rise again and over time, she will more and more become
an expert. As an expert, she has regained high confidence,
based on a large amount of differentiated knowledge she can
reflect. For example, an expert may see Russia’s responsibility
regarding the Ukraine war but he will also see the history
before and therefore the responsibility of the western nations.
And he may see that both sides rely largely on propaganda
and that all information has to be interpreted with caution.
To sum it up, this process of gaining knowledge takes time
and effort, a price a majority of people apparently are not
willing to pay, even if the respective topic is highly relevant to
their life. We are living in a world with an overload of
everything: A flood of information and other stimuli is rolling
over us from all sides and instead of properly dealing with it
and putting it into context by thinking, which takes effort and
thereby is uncomfortable, many people prefer to just consume
and keep being simpletons. And naturally, there is way too
much knowledge to become an expert in every area. The lack
of knowledge is not the main problem here, but the wrong
(self-)perception of the own competence failing to recognize
the limits of personal knowledge. So the Dunning-Kruger
Effect can be seen as more of a character problem than a lack
of education.
The theory behind the Dunning Kruger Effect goes along very
well with Bonnhoefers theory of stupidity I described in the
last issue
(https://deraufstand.wihuman.de/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/
The_Carrier_Pigeon_Issue_1-1.pdf) and there are many things
problematic when people are affected by it:
They are very susceptible to manipulation: Mass media
nowadays are full of propaganda and simplified messages or
conclusions easily to digest and therapy perfectly fitting for
people under the influence of the Dunning Kruger Effect.
They inherit these messages and think they are competent just
by believing and unthinkingly repeating them.
They have the potential to do mistakes and evil without
even knowing it: Naturally, persons overestimating their
competence are at a higher risk of making mistakes like
misjudging situations or coming to bad decisions. If they are
in influential positions, the damage can be enormous. What is
even worse, when their simplified perspective leads to a
proclaimed moral superiority, people under the Dunning
Kruger Effect may even do evil things unable to reflect their
doings due to their incompetence.
They are charming and charismatic: Imaging the simpleton,
knowing student and expert discussing a talk show: The
simpleton will argue with complete confidence and certainty.
The knowing student maybe will say nothing due to his lack
of confidence despite his higher amount of knowledge. The
expert will argue confidently but weaken his arguments with
conditions since he knows the complexity of the topic does
not easily allow definite conclusions. Which of the three will
be most persuasive for the audience? It will likely be the
simpleton due to the confidence he expresses his position as
well as the lack of education of the majority of the audience in
the respective topic. Confident people are charming, so people affected by the Dunning-Kruger Effect can appear very
competent and believable and thereby persuasive to others.
In the following, I provide recommendations I thought about,
not only for dealing with people affected by the Dunning
Kruger Effect but also for preventing being affected by
oneself, which also can easily happen:
Reflect yourself: One of the most important aspects for the
prevention of being affected by the Dunning Kruger Effect is
an appropriate amount of self-reflection about the own
competence. How much do you really know about a certain
topic? What are your sources of information? Is this topic as
easy as you think? Is the explanation you have in mind the
only one possible? Does your amount of knowledge or
competence regarding a certain topic really justify your
confidence? Questions like these you can ask to reflect
yourself. Note that the aim is not to downgrade yourself but to
gain a realistic view regarding your knowledge and abilities
that will also help you to make better decisions.
Be critical: Reflect on every piece of information you gain
from others carefully. Is it objectively based on evidence? Is it
complete or is something missing? What are the (potential)
intentions of the information giver? Are there alternative
perspectives? Keep your eyes open regarding what you
receive and think for yourself. It is not about becoming a
mistrusting hermit, but an open-minded person with an
appropriate amount of reflective and critical thinking.
Especially with information going along with our own
opinion, critical reflection has to be an active process, since
we tend to believe it more compared to information contrary
to our own view of the world.
Do not give up gaining more knowledge: Even if you feel
overwhelmed by the amount of information and different
perspectives on the respective topic, do not give up gaining
more knowledge. Over time, you will order your many
thoughts in a more and more logical way and see the bigger
picture.
Disclose incompetence in a non-offensive way: If you
discuss with a person affected by the Dunning Kruger Effect
before an audience and you are sure you are more competent
regarding the discussed topic, it is quite easy to disclose her
incompetence: Ask the person questions to explain her
position, questions that go deeper into the topic. She will not
be able to answer appropriately and thereby expose her
incompetence by herself. Maybe she will repeat her
superficial opinion just in other words, maybe she will try to
distract from her incompetence by shifting the focus to other
aspects, or maybe she will even get loud and attack you
personally with accusations or insults. Don’t be satisfied with
that, don’t let yourself get distracted, keep your cool, and
repeat your questions to show everybody that there is no
substance behind the phrases of the person. Maybe, if the
person is at least a bit self-reflective, she also may realize her
incompetence to some degree. But since the Dunning Kruger
Effect is a complete misconception of the own competence
and the competence of others, better not count on it and
consider carefully if you want to take time, effort, and nerves
to take on a highly likely fruitless attempt to convince a
person affected. Focus more on making the audience realize
her incompetence and if there is no audience, discuss only if
you consider the person important enough.
By the way, persons affected by the Dunning Kruger Effect
may accuse you to be affected by the Dunning Kruger
Effect 😉
By Peter Mueller
[2nd edition/23, page 10]
