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Dunning–Kruger effect

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  • Dunning–Kruger effect

    This is the bias where the less competent someone is at a task, the more they will overestimate their competence. Likewise, someone who is very competent will likely underestimate their competency level. Thus, how would a person accurately determine their own competency level? What if there wasn't a standardized test?
    If it weren't for the Resurrection of Jesus, we'd all be in DEEP TROUBLE!

  • #2
    Well, the first step to finding out if your competency level has improved is not to live life as though you've forgotten you ever had an incompetency level. If you haven't been testing yourself, and at least occasionally remembering how little you knew previously, you're probably going to have some level of incompetence at a task until you get at least some experience.

    I mean, what, are you going through life thinking that THIS TASK COMPETENCY ASSESSMENT IS ALL THAT MATTERS, WHAT I DO BEFORE OR AFTER HAS NO EFFECT ON MY COMPETENCE SCORE? If so, there's the thing that's keeping you incompetent right there:

    Originally posted by Mencius Moldbug
    If you want my opinion on this subject, it is that - alas - there is no way of becoming reasonable, other than to be reasonable. Reason is wisdom. There is no formula for wisdom - and of all unwise beliefs, the belief that wisdom can be reduced to a formula, a prayer chant, a mantra, whatever, is the most ridiculous.
    My only operational advice is: For competency assessments, get a group of three men, none of them subject to each other, to give their opinions in turn.

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    • #3
      Uhh. I just want to know in general. Not me specifically. Like, have you ever heard of this effect? It reminds me of Socrates saying that the beginning of wisdom is to realize that you know nothing, or something like that.
      If it weren't for the Resurrection of Jesus, we'd all be in DEEP TROUBLE!

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      • #4
        honest assessment of your work by a third party?
        "Some people feel guilty about their anxieties and regard them as a defect of faith but they are afflictions, not sins. Like all afflictions, they are, if we can so take them, our share in the passion of Christ." - That Guy Everyone Quotes

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        • #5
          Originally posted by hamster View Post
          honest assessment of your work by a third party?
          Yep, but what would happen if there wasn't a third party?
          If it weren't for the Resurrection of Jesus, we'd all be in DEEP TROUBLE!

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          • #6
            Originally posted by Christianbookworm View Post
            Uhh. I just want to know in general. Not me specifically. Like, have you ever heard of this effect? It reminds me of Socrates saying that the beginning of wisdom is to realize that you know nothing, or something like that.
            I've just now heard of this phenomenon having an actual name, but it is in my experience very true. You see it here all the time. It is usually pounded out of candidates in a good graduate program. But, more generally, it also varies greatly with individuals, depending upon maturity and intelligence.
            βλέπομεν γὰρ ἄρτι δι᾿ ἐσόπτρου ἐν αἰνίγματι, τότε δὲ πρόσωπον πρὸς πρόσωπον·
            ἄρτι γινώσκω ἐκ μέρους, τότε δὲ ἐπιγνώσομαι καθὼς καὶ ἐπεγνώσθην.

            אָכֵ֕ן אַתָּ֖ה אֵ֣ל מִסְתַּתֵּ֑ר אֱלֹהֵ֥י יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל מוֹשִֽׁיעַ׃

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            • #7
              Originally posted by Christianbookworm View Post
              Yep, but what would happen if there wasn't a third party?
              Already told you: For competency assessments, get a group of three men, hopefully skilled in the subject, none of them subject to each other, to give their opinions in turn. America doesn't do third parties.

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              • #8
                Originally posted by Epoetker View Post
                Already told you: For competency assessments, get a group of three men, hopefully skilled in the subject, none of them subject to each other, to give their opinions in turn. America doesn't do third parties.
                Yep! And hopefully they are all wise enough to listen to each other.
                If it weren't for the Resurrection of Jesus, we'd all be in DEEP TROUBLE!

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                • #9
                  If the thing doesn't work when you finish you pretty much have your answer, don't you?
                  "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose." - Jim Elliot

                  "Forgiveness is the way of love." Gary Chapman

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                  • #10
                    Originally posted by Christianbookworm View Post
                    Yep! And hopefully they are all wise enough to listen to each other.
                    That's precisely the opposite of the idea. We're trying NOT to have them influence each other's impressions through 'active listening' or 'positive collaboration' or whatever the popular euphemism is for making yourself as vulnerable as possible to peer pressure is these days.

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                    • #11
                      Then why have them talk to each other???
                      If it weren't for the Resurrection of Jesus, we'd all be in DEEP TROUBLE!

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                      • #12
                        Originally posted by Christianbookworm View Post
                        Then why have them talk to each other???
                        meh. Don't pay attention to Epoetker. He suffers from the Dunning-Kruger effect.

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                        • #13
                          Originally posted by Sparko View Post
                          meh. Don't pay attention to Epoetker. He suffers from the Dunning-Kruger effect.
                          If it weren't for the Resurrection of Jesus, we'd all be in DEEP TROUBLE!

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                          • #14
                            It's a well known effect; I hear the term used quite a lot.

                            The name comes from a research paper, or rather a series of papers and studies by Justin Kruger and David Dunning of the department of psychology at Cornell University. The classic reference is:
                            Kruger, J; Dunning D (1999) Unskilled and unaware of it: How difficulties in recognizing one's own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 77(6), Dec 1999, 1121-1134.

                            Abstract People tend to hold overly favorable views of their abilities in many social and intellectual domains. The authors suggest that this overestimation occurs, in part, because people who are unskilled in these domains suffer a dual burden: Not only do these people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it. Across 4 studies, the authors found that participants scoring in the bottom quartile on tests of humor, grammar, and logic grossly overestimated their test performance and ability. Although their test scores put them in the 12th percentile, they estimated themselves to be in the 62nd. Several analyses linked this miscalibration to deficits in metacognitive skill, or the capacity to distinguish accuracy from error. Paradoxically, improving the skills of the participants, and thus increasing their metacognitive competence, helped them recognize the limitations of their abilities.

                            There's a Wikipedia page on the Dunning Kruger effect; and you'll often see the term used freely in discussions of science related subjects where there tend to be strong opinions held by regular folks who don't actually have any background in the science involved. Classic examples include climate, evolutionary biology, vaccination, cosmology, relativity, economics, and so on.

                            There's big irony here! The paper itself is a technical psychology paper, and the term "Dunning Kruger effect" is arguably being used in many contexts that doesn't really fit well with the specific research and evidence from the Dunning Kruger papers; by people who don't know technical psychology behind the origins of the term. Maybe. In any case, not being a psychologist, I'm not confident of my own ability to look at the psychology behind trivial errors being made with great confidence; so I avoid using the term lest I end up doing the same thing.

                            The wikipedia article offers another older reference for the basic underlying idea:
                            The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool. As you like it; Shakespeare

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                            • #15
                              How do you test 'humor'? Or logic, for that matter (following the rules and being able to express it formally are different things)?



                              The way of fools seems right to them, but the wise listen to advice. Proverbs 12:15, NIV, BLB
                              "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose." - Jim Elliot

                              "Forgiveness is the way of love." Gary Chapman

                              My Personal Blog

                              My Novella blog (Current Novella Begins on 7/25/14)

                              Quill Sword

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