Dunning–Kruger effect

The Irony of the Dunning-Kruger Effect Vallis | Video Essays (12.7K subscribers)

The video is mostly about how the (graphical) meme about Dunning-Kruger Effect was made up, is wrong, and was not in the original research that has very different graphs.

My own comment:

tl;dr: The Dunning–Kruger effect has become a harmful meme; IRL it may have little practical value; IRL extreme confidence may be better explained with regard to emotional aspects of opinions.

I’ve been skeptical about the popularity of the “Dunning–Kruger effect” almost from the start, and my doubts have only grown over time. As others have pointed out, the original studies were weak. Also noted by others: D-K is especially popular among people who misunderstand its significance (if it has much significance at all). Some even use D-K as a synonym for “stupid”. Accusing someone of “suffering from the D-K effect” becomes a way to avoid engaging with their argument while signalling one’s own supposed expertise.

When I encounter people expressing strong, confident opinions on subjects they know little about, D-K often doesn’t seem to apply. The effect concerns the gap between self-assessed skill and actual measured performance in specific tasks, not simply holding an opinion on a topic.

Perhaps lack of expertise is a red herring. The opinions people push onto others are often emotionally charged and perhaps not necessarily linked to level of education. More relevant factors might be hostility toward out-groups, in-group solidarity, wishful thinking, or the need to resolve cognitive dissonance. I don’t know whether unwarranted confidence a cause or effect; many people with very different backgrounds have firm convictions, it’s just so much more noticeable when those convictions are clearly baseless.

The D-K insight about “lack of metacognitive awareness” could still be relevant, but in a broader sense: not just failing to assess one’s skill accurately, but failing to recognize the sources of one’s convictions (something that affects everyone, not only the “stupid”).

Related but perhaps OT: isn’t it well known that most people believe they are above-average drivers? This might reflect healthy psychology rather than delusion. And is there confusion with regard to when people assess their performance in absolute terms versus relative to others?

Finally, I have a theory that memes are always harmful. Not only when they’re wrong, but also when they’re nominally correct. Memes strip nuance, appeal to emotion over truth, act as tribal signals that fuel polarization, and reduce ideas to slogans that discourage real thinking.