Why incompetent people think they're amazing - David Dunning
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Published 2017-11-09
View full lesson: ed.ted.com/lessons/why-incompetent-people-think-th…
How good are you with money? What about reading people’s emotions? How healthy are you, compared to other people you know? Knowing how our skills stack up against others is useful in many ways. But psychological research suggests that we’re not very good at evaluating ourselves accurately. In fact, we frequently overestimate our own abilities. David Dunning describes the Dunning-Kruger effect.
Lesson by David Dunning, directed by Wednesday Studio, music and sound by Tom Drew.
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All Comments (21)
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The more you know, the more you know you don't know - Aristotle
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Welp, there goes my last drop of confidence
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“When they are unskilled, they can’t see their own faults. When they’re exceptionally competent, they don’t perceive how unusual their abilities are” so true!!!
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After 15 minutes of research, I understand the DK effect better than anyone on Earth and all time.
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Me watching this: “Ha! Those people are idiots!” Also me: completely misses the point
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Jokes on you TED-Ed, I’m incompetent and I know it.
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I look at old drawings I did and think "wow, I can't believe I used to be proud of this, like it was flawless" because I have reached the point where I can see all the things that could be improved. I imagine that in the future I will say the same thing about my current drawings. But I have seen people who draw very poorly get heaps of praise from family and friends who are trying to be nice, and it deludes them into thinking they are actually good, and they never improve. People need to be encouraged, but they also need to be guided in the right direction and shown where they can improve.
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As a scientific educated person, I am always stating:“The more you know, the more you recognize, how less you know!“
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Plot Twist: Psychologists Dunning and Kruger are overestimating their abilities to judge human behaviours.
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One of my favorite stories... A university professor was speaking to freshman on their first day of classes. He said, "I realize you have recently graduated from high school and I would venture to guess that most of you think you know everything. Let me assure you that as you gain your bachelor's degree, you will soon realize that you DON'T know everything. If you continue to the point of reaching your master's degree, you will find that YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING. And then, if you continue with your education, you may someday receive your doctorate only to find that NOBODY KNOWS ANYTHING.
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My personal experience has been that highly accomplished people in one field tend to greatly overestimate their competence in other fields, much more so than less accomplished people do. And they also tend to believe that their field of expertise has greater general applicability than it actually does.
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This is why it's so important to surround ourselves with people who care about us and are willing to point out when we do wrong (professionally and personally)
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One of the problems with judging driving abilities is we judge others by their actions and we tend to judge ourselves by our intentions.
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A famous saying goes... "The more I learn the less I know." I find this statement so true...
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When I had to decide whether to study mathematics or computer science, my grandparents asked me why I would want to study math when I could already do calculations (+, -, *, /). That's when the Dunning-Kruger effect was very apparent, as my grandparents probably considered themselves good at math, while I assessed my math skills as significantly poorer because I am more aware, compared to them, of what math actually entails and how complex it can become.
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This is the first video I've seen about the Dunning Kruger effect that took the time to explain how this cognitive bias impacts experts as well as non-experts. Most videos just explain the part about how non-experts lack the expertise needed to recognize their incompetence and leave it at that, but the other side of the coin is equally important.
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My two favorite quotes are, "Beware of the man who has read one book," and "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing." So true.
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aka ”send this to your friend passive aggressively whenever they try to flex on you”
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I humbly believe that the greatest wisdom, is to know what you don't know. When you're out of your depth. I know a lot about a lot of things, but never miss an opportunity to learn from others who know better, no matter what their seniority.
