It's a simple phrase which may well be the basis of the Dunning-Kruger effect, a cognitive bias which has been "common sense" for a long time. It's been said “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing”, and even Charles Darwin is quoted saying “Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge”, and this is how the Dunning-Kruger effect is understood in general, but what exactly is it?
The Dunning-Kruger effect was officially quantified in 1999 when social psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger published their paper “Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments”.
In this simple study, the two researchers gave their test subjects an exam which tested their logic, grammar & humour, and before evaluating any subject, asked them how well they thought they'd done. Dunning & Kruger then compared the subjects' percieved scores against their actual scores, and found a fascinating correlation... The lower the subject scored, the greater the disparity between their actual score, with the lowest scoring participants assuming they'd done three-to-four times better than they did; middle-scoring participants thinking they'd scored double or one-and-a-half times better, to the point that the highest scoring subjects actually underestimated their scores a little. I've included a stylized recreation of their findings as today's Illustration (see fig. 7, above), and I don't want to overstate this... the lower scoring quartile of subjects, on average, didn't believe they'd done the best - but they were still overestimating their abilities by a wide margin.
Now, this test wasn't great. I haven't been able to get my hands on the actual questions, but the fact that they were tested on "humour" seems questionable at best, I'm not really sure how you score someone on their sense of humour. However, this test was the first of several more tests on different subjects and sciences, and similar results have been found throughout several fields of study.
So, why does this happen? Well, there are several theories. Some of the most common theories relates to Illusory Superiority. This kind of cognitive bias is also known as the "above-average effect", "leniency error" and the "overconfidence effect", because it's not simply one thing (and in fact, in modern psychology the "Dunning-Kruger effect" is considered one of the factors of Illusory Superiority). But, it includes a bevy of psychological fallacies such as the "better-than-average" heuristic: in simple terms, the majority of people do not think they're "average", but the majority of any set is "average", by definition, meaning that, the majority of people therefore must overestimate themselves. Some theorize that this is because most people hold "above-average" to be ideal, for most social and personal traits - honesty, intelligence, kindness, popularity, strength - whilst these are positive traits, having them to an unusually high degree can be seen as negative, i.e. brutal honesty; arrogant intelligence; self-sacrificing kindness; idolized popularity; dangerous strength - so, by seeing oneself as merely "above average", it's holding oneself in the highest possible esteem with most of these traits.
In a way, it could be seen of as a form of high self-esteem, as we're holding our own selves equivalent to what we see as the societal ideal. However, it could be seen as a form of low empathy, as we're considering the majority of others as sub-standard, which relates to the second form of Illusory Superiority I want to talk about, Egocentrism: basically, it's when you hold singular and greater significance over yourself, your abilities and your characteristics, compared with anyone else and often involves a kind of perception of advantage and/or privilege for oneself, compared to others.
Sadly, this is the common pop-culture understanding of the Dunning-Kruger effect: egocentrism, arrogance and self-importance. I admit that this is how I viewed it, and what inspired this post. After all, what's a better example of Failure and the Dunning-Kruger effect than Donald Trump? His thoughtless actions are still affecting the world to this day, and I thought his incompetence could be explained by this psychological phenomenon. It's well-established that Donald Trump would frequently overestimate his own capacity, intelligence, abilities, political knowledge and didn't even understand the responsibilities or powers of the presidency - the Mueller report found that on several occasions, Trump ordered his political staff to commit illegal acts, and the only reason he was not punished for this was because those members of staff chose not to follow through with his unlawful demands.
But, after doing this research, it's clear to me that Trump was not an example of the Dunning-Kruger effect... it's just textbook Narcissism.
See, the Dunning-Kruger effect may have nothing to do with self-perception at all, it could simply be because humans suck at counting, and estimating, in general. There have been several studies showing how common innumeracy, discalculia and poor mathematic ability is amongst the human population. There are even several theories that claim humans don't count linearly, but logarithmically. I won't go into detail on that because it would take two hours of research...
[A/N: I know that because I already DID that research, and lost it all because my computer crashed (TWICE!). I guess it took this year's theme of "Failure" literally...]But the important thing is, humans suck at counting and estimating, and perhaps our overestimation of ourselves is just another example of how badly we screw up at counting.
It could even be related to Game Theory, specifically Information Asymmetry... in the absence of relevant information, we are often left with inadequate strategies of how to proceed, especially when we don't know just how much information we don't have, in a given "game".
But, at the end of the day, the important thing we all must learn from these examples of the Dunning-Kruger effect, is that when we fail... we may be unable to understand just how badly we've failed until we see the results. Whilst Donald Trump turned out to be a shitty example of the Dunning-Kruger effect (as he's kind of a shitty example of basically everything humanity has to offer), I do think a much better example is "Climate Change Denial". I was once a climate change denier - I even have a blog post all about it - but the difference between myself and most other climate change deniers is that I was still pro-environmentalist, and I saw the benefits of the climate-change position, even though I disagreed with their conclusion (at the time).
Even now that I better understand climate change and fully accept all of the realities of anthropogenic climate change, those who still don't not only don't seem to understand the realities but their lack of understanding is so deep, they fail to understand how they could possibly be so wrong, and how wrong they could possibly be.
This is true of basically all science-deniers: creationists; anti-queer bigots, anti-abortionists; conspiracy theorists...
They're all dangerously stupid, but not because they're significantly dumber than the average person. I've met a lot of dumb people who admit their own ignorance - and hell, some people on the autism spectrum have learning disabilities, but autistic people aren't more dangerous than the average person, despite their lower intelligence quotient. No, what makes you a dangerous dumb person is when you fail to understand that you are dumb.
So, yeah, all of this just to circle right back to the beginning, because there is truth in that quote:
"A Little Knowledge is a Dangerous Thing".
We fail, all the time, but that's not always a bad thing. To err is human. I think I've used that quote about five times already in this Countdown but it's the reality, we fail yet we thrive regardless.
But Our Failure becomes Truly Dangerous when we Fail to Recognize It.
I'm the Absurd Word Nerd, and I'm going to see what's wrong with this computer, so it doesn't fail on me again... that would make this Countdown take much longer to write.
But, Until Next Time, I ask that you self-reflect, take a good look at yourself, your life and your actions, and ask yourself... have I already failed, and just not realized it yet?
