By Sarah Egan-Reeves, M.Ed.

Have you ever worked with or taught someone who was overly confident in their own abilities despite low performance? While many of us continually underestimate our abilities and feel anxious about not measuring up, (Imposter Syndrome is an entire other matter) there is a large segment of the population who are pleased-as-punch with their knowledge or ablities despite evidence to the contrary. The Dunning–Kruger Effect is a cognitive bias wherein people of low ability suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly assessing their cognitive ability as greater than it is. According to Dunning, et al. (2003), the irony is that the knowledge and intelligence that are needed to be good at something are often the same qualities needed to recognize that one is not good at that task—and if one lacks such knowledge and intelligence, one remains ignorant that one is not good at that task. This is important to understand when dealing with teams of people working together to reach common goals. Deliberate and humane reflective practices can help individuals identify where they are strong and where resources are needed. This TEDED video was created by Dunning and offers some strategies for combating the Dunning-Kruger Effect.

Reference

Dunning, D., Johnson, K., Ehrlinger, J., & Kruger, J. (2003). Why people fail to recognize their own incompetence. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 12(3), 83-87.