June 28, 2025 • 32 mins
Ever wonder why the least qualified people are often the most confident?
Welcome to the wild world of the Dunning-Kruger Effect—a mind-bending cognitive bias where the less you know, the more you think you know. In this episode, we unravel the hilarious (and true!) story of a bank robber who thought lemon juice would make him invisible, and how this bizarre crime inspired groundbreaking research into overconfidence and self-awareness.
Discover why incompetence can blind us to our own shortcomings, while true experts often underestimate themselves, assuming everyone else knows what they know. We’ll break down the psychology behind self-assessment bias, explore why smart people sometimes feel like imposters, and reveal how continuous learning and honest feedback are the real superpowers for personal growth.
If you’ve ever cringed at your own past confidence or wondered why some people just don’t “get it,” this episode is for you. Packed with relatable stories, surprising science, and practical tips, it’s a must-listen for anyone obsessed with understanding the quirks of the human mind.
Hit play, share with your favorite know-it-all (or humble genius), and subscribe for more brain-bending psychology podcasts that make you smarter every week!
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/mindbenders-brain-teasers-philo-psych--6019641/support.
Welcome to the wild world of the Dunning-Kruger Effect—a mind-bending cognitive bias where the less you know, the more you think you know. In this episode, we unravel the hilarious (and true!) story of a bank robber who thought lemon juice would make him invisible, and how this bizarre crime inspired groundbreaking research into overconfidence and self-awareness.
Discover why incompetence can blind us to our own shortcomings, while true experts often underestimate themselves, assuming everyone else knows what they know. We’ll break down the psychology behind self-assessment bias, explore why smart people sometimes feel like imposters, and reveal how continuous learning and honest feedback are the real superpowers for personal growth.
If you’ve ever cringed at your own past confidence or wondered why some people just don’t “get it,” this episode is for you. Packed with relatable stories, surprising science, and practical tips, it’s a must-listen for anyone obsessed with understanding the quirks of the human mind.
Hit play, share with your favorite know-it-all (or humble genius), and subscribe for more brain-bending psychology podcasts that make you smarter every week!
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/mindbenders-brain-teasers-philo-psych--6019641/support.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to another deep dive. Today we're plunging into, well,
one of the most fascinating and honestly sometimes baffling parts
of how our minds work. Why we so often think
we're way better at something than we actually are. It's
a thing, and it can lead to some truly wild situations. Absolutely,
so if the kick us off, I want to take
you back picture this nineteen ninety five Pittsburgh. There's this
(00:23):
bizarre but totally true story.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
I think I know the one you mean, right.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
So imagine this guy. He walks into two different banks,
broad daylight, no mask, no real disguise, right out in
the open, totally smiles right at the surveillance cameras, robs
both banks, and then just confidently walks out. Okay, later
that evening the police find him pick him up. But
here's the kicker. When they slapped the cuffs on, he's
just completely bewildered.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Puzzle like, he has no idea why exactly.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
He keeps mumbling, but I wore the juice. I wore
the juice.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
The juice.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Yeah, and you're probably thinking, what juice like trupicana. Well,
it turns out this man MacArthur Wheeler he genuinely believed,
get this, that if he smeared lemon juice all over
his face, lemon juice, lemon juice, it would make him
invisible to the bank's security cameras.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Invisible because of lemon juice.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
His thinking apparently was that since lemon juice is used
for invisible inc well, obviously it would make him invisible
to cameras too. Flawless logic, right, Wow, that's ah.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
That's quite a leap. The level of conviction there is
just incredible, isn't it. Totally And what's really striking is
when the police showed him the surveillance tapes, you know,
the actual proof of him clear as day robbing the banks,
he was genuinely astonished. I didn't believe it, Nope, thought the
footage must be fake. The police checked him out, of course,
they didn't find him to be, you know, legally crazy
(01:48):
or high on drugs or anything.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
So just wrong.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Their conclusion was simply that he was incredibly misinformed and
just profoundly mistaken, despite being absolutely unshakably certain, he believed
in his invisible lemon juice trick.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
It's almost funny, but it also just makes you scratch
your head. You know, how could someone be that wrong
and that confident, so confident about something so easily disproven.
How could you have such like unwavering faith in this
completely wild idea even when staring at the evidence.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Well, this exact strangeness, this bewildering incident. It caught the
attention of two social psychologists, David Dunning and Justin Krueger.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Ah, okay, here we go.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
They started wondering what explains that kind of extreme confidence
when someone is so obviously undeniably incompetent. Right, this whole
lemon juice affair basically became the spark for their research
into what we now call a pretty significant cognitive bias,
the sort of systematic glitch in our thinking.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
A glitch, yeah, like a pattern where we just deviate
from rational judgment.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Precisely. Their main question really dug into that paradox, you know,
confidence versus confidence. They wanted to figure out the mechanisms
behind that kind of profound self deception.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
It's not just about being wrong, No.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
It's about being really wrong, being utterly convinced you're right,
so convinced that even you know, objective reality has trouble
getting through it, pointed them, towards a really fundamental human
blind spot, and.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
That is our mission for this deep dive today. We're
going to try and unravel this fascinating bias, understand where
it comes from, see how it pops up in our
everyday lives, because, believe.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Me, it does oh constantly.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
And most importantly, explore how you listening right now can
maybe recognize it, not just in other people, but uh,
let's be honest in ourselves too, and maybe how to
break free from it, you know, in your own journey
of learning and figuring things out. Yeah, because we've all
been a little bit like that bank robber at some point,
haven't we. Maybe not with lemon juice and surveillance cameras
(03:49):
hopefully not hopefully not, but definitely with like a totally
outsized sense of our own abilities in something. Okay, so
let's really untack this. Let's talk about the landmark study
that actually gave his whole phenomenon it's name, the Dunning
Krueger effect. Because Dunning and Kruger they didn't just stop at,
you know, puzzling over bizarre bank robbers. They decided to
take this into the lab.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Yeah, they wanted to investigate it systematically. In a controlled
setting to really understand this weird mental quirk.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
So what do they do well?
Speaker 2 (04:18):
They gathered a group of undergraduate students. Yeah, you know,
a pretty common group for these kinds of psych studies.
Very useful, sure, And they gave them a series of tests,
specifically tasks that required identifiable skills and had objective ways
to measure how well people did.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
Like what kind of tasks.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
They assessed things like grammatical writing ability, logical reasoning skills,
and even interestingly, their sense of humor.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Sense humor? How do you test that objectively?
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Well, it's complex, right, but it involves things like pattern recognition,
social understanding. They compared the student's ratings of jokes to
ratings by professional comedians. It's an area where you can
establish a sort of scale of competence from you know,
poor to excellent.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Okay, gotcha. So not just random tasks. They picked things
with a measurable skill level exactly.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
So they had the students do these tasks right, and
they scored them. They got objective scores on how well
they actually performed.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Okay, makes sense.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
But here's where it gets really interesting. This is the
genius part of their design. After the students finished, Dunning
and Krueger asked them this critical next question, which was
they asked each student to estimate their own overall score
on the tests they just took, and crucially to estimate
their relative rank, you know, compared to all the other
(05:35):
students in the group.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
So basically, how well do you think you did and
how do you think you stack up against everybody else?
Speaker 2 (05:41):
Precisely that self assessment piece was the key.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
And what did they find was everyone pretty accurate?
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Well, this is where they made their really fascinating discovery.
What they found was totally counterintuitive. It gave us the
core insight into this whole effect. They found basically two
different but connected sides of this self perception coin, a
big disconnect between what people think they know what they
actually know.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Okay, tell me about the first side, the one that
probably sounds more familiar.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Right, This is uh, the grand illusion of the low performers.
The main finding was pretty stark. The students who scored
the lowest on these tasks, the ones who were objectively
the least skilled in grammar, logic, humor whatever it was,
they consistently and significantly overestimated how well.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
They did overestimated, like by little.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Not just by a little a lot. They generally believed
they had scored above.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Average when they were actually when.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
In reality, their scores were among the absolute lowest. Yeah,
off and down in like the tenth or twelfth percentile. Yeah,
but they thought they were up around the sixtieth or
seventieth percentile.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Wow, that's that's a big gap.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
It's huge. The size of that overestimation is really important
to grasp. It wasn't just a minor bias. It was
a profound misjudgment. Like they were living in a totally
different reality regarding their skills.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
So what's the core insight there? Why were they so off?
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Well? It led to this key idea. These students weren't
just unskilled at the tasks themselves, they also lacked the
basic self awareness, the metacognitive skill to even recognize their
own lack of skill.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Ah okay, so the skill you need to do the
task is kind of the same skill you need to
judge how well you did it exactly.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
That's the crux of it. The very lack of skill
needed for the task often prevents accurate self assessment. It
creates this blind spot to your own limits. They literally
didn't even know just.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
How bad they were, so their incompetence was kind of
hidden from them by their incompetence.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Precisely, it creates the self reinforcing loop. Ignorance breeds confidence
in a way.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
Man, that's wild. I can totally relate to that grand
illusion though. I remember this one time I decided I
was going to bake sour dough bread.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Oh boy, ambitious. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
I'd watched a couple of YouTube videos, you know, read
a blog post, and I genuinely thought, yeah, I got this.
How hard can it be? Flower water? Right? Was last words, totally.
My confidence was like sky high. I was telling everyone
about this amazing artisanal bread I was gonna make, picturing
this perfect loaf, and the reality, the reality was, let's
just say, it looked more like a dense, sad hockey peck,
(08:14):
barely edible. It was awful.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Uh huh, been there.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
And I truly thought I was gonna nail it. It
was only after staring at that like rock hard disaster
that I realized I was well nowhere near being a baker.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Classic Dunning Krueger textbook case.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
For me, I had just enough knowledge to be dangerously
confident and absolutely zero clue about the actual complexity. You
really just don't know what you don't know, you know,
and you're so sure about that tiny bit you do
know mm mmmm.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
And then there's the other side of the coin, often
less talked about, but just as important and kind of paradoxical,
the subtle blind spot of the high performers.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
Okay, what about them? Were they accurate?
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Well? Dunning and Krueger found that the top scorers, the
students who genuinely aced the techs, they actually underestimated their performance.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
Underestimated really, they thought they did worse than they did, not.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Necessarily worse, but they underestimated their relative performance. They knew
they were better than average, sure, but because the tasks
felt easy to them, they tended to assume implicitly that
the tasks were easy for everyone. They didn't fully grasp
that their ability actually put them way up in the
top percentile compared to their peers.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
That's fascinating. It kind of flips your intuition, doesn't it.
You'd think the most competent people would be the most
accurate judges of their own skill.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
You would think so, yeah, But instead they kind of
project their own ease onto others. It's like thinking Oh,
that was pretty simple for me, so it must have
been simple for most people.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
It's almost like a form of empathy gone wrong, or
assuming everyone else finds it as easy.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Yeah. It might be related to something called the false
consensus effect, where we tend to overestimate how much other
people share our own perspectives or abilities. In this case,
it ironically leads the most competent people to slightly underestimate
their own relative standing.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
So they don't realize just how good they actually are compared.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
To others exactly. It often comes from that projection. Because
they're highly skilled, certain things feel straightforward, maybe even effortless
for them, right, and they implicitly assume the baseline is shared,
so it makes it harder for them to appreciate just
how rare or exceptional their own high level skill actually is.
It leads to this underestimation of their unique abilities.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
It just shows how tricky these biases are. They can
affect everyone, even the people at the top.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Absolutely true expertise often comes with the kind of humility actually,
a recognition that if something feels easy to you, it
might be precisely because you put in a ton of
effort to master it. Effort others haven't.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
Okay, so let's try and boil this down. Then, what's
the core definition of the Dunning Kruger effect?
Speaker 2 (10:52):
Okay? Simply put, it's that people with low ability at
a task often don't have the skills needed to recognize
their own.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Incompetence, the lack of self awareness.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Bit. Yes, and that poor self awareness leads them to
significantly overestimate their own capabilities.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
And you mentioned a confidence curve earlier, like a visual
way to think about this.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Yeah, it's a helpful analogy. Imagine a graphlin plotting confidence
against competence or skill. When you have very little skill
or knowledge, you're just starting out, your confidence can be
sky high.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
That's the mount stupid you mentioned.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Uh huh, Yeah, some people jokingly call it that. It's
this peak of irrational confidence born from just not knowing enough.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
Okay, Why is confidence so high then?
Speaker 2 (11:35):
Because at that early stage you simply don't know enough
to realize how vast the topic is. How much you
don't know, you're kind of blissfully unaware of all the
complexities involved.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Ignorance is bliss sort of.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
In a way.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Yes, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
But then as you start to learn a bit more,
as you scratch beneath the surface, That initial inflated confidence
usually takes a nose dive ah bites exactly. You start realizing, Wow,
there's way more to this than I thought. You see
how much you don't know how complex it really is,
and you might feel overwhelmed, maybe even less confident than
when you start it.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
That sounds like the valley of despair.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
That's another term sometimes used for it. Yeah, it's a
period of intellectual humility, maybe even some.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
Discouragement, But that's where the real learning starts, right when
you confront that ignorance.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Absolutely, and it's only when you push through that valley,
keep learning, persist through the discomfort and actually start reaching
an above average skill level that your confidence begins to
climb again.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
But it's a different kind of confidence.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Now, totally different. It's not the baseless bravado of Mount Stupid.
It's a confidence that's actually grounded in real competence, in experience,
and in a much deeper, more realistic understanding of the subject.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
So it's like a journey blissful ignorance, painful awareness, then
earned confidence.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
That's a great way to put it, and that visual
metaphor really helps show why the most dangerous place can
be just past the starting line, where your perceived knowledge
feels huge, but your actual understanding is still pretty shallow.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
Okay, so this isn't just about students taking grammar tests
in the lab, right, That's crucial to.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Understand, absolutely critical. This phenomenon isn't confined to specific cognitive
tasks or academic settings. It reaches further, much further. The
Dunning Kruger effect seems to extend its reach into practically
every part of our daily lives. It influences how we
see our own abilities and others' abilities all the time.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
So it doesn't really matter what the skill or.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Activity is, doesn't seem to the basic principle holes. The
less a person knows about any given activity, the more
likely they are to overestimate their skill and knowledge in it.
It's incredibly pervasive driving, cooking, managing, money, understanding politics, even
social skills.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
Yeah, you start thinking about it and you can see
it everywhere you listening right now? Where have you seen
this play out? Probably without even realizing it was the
Dunning Kruger effect, Like think about those reality TV talents
American idol auditions for instance, Oh perfect, exactly you get
this amazing mix of people, right, some are genuinely talented
singers and others, well, others are just not good, like
(14:11):
objectively not good.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
Right, But the confidence exactly.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Many of those who really lack talent show up with
this almost unshakable belief that they're the next big star.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
The ones who are truly terrible often seem to have
almost no idea how bad they actually sound. They step
on that stage just beaming with confidence, totally convinced they're
about to blow everyone away. Their self perception is just
completely out of sync with reality.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
And you see their faces when the judges give them
the bad news. It's not just disappointment, is it. It's
like genuine shock, confusion.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Little bewilderment.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Sometimes, Yeah, their confidence just crumbles right there because they're
finally hit with this external reality check that they completely
fail to see internally. That like tearful surprise when they
get rejected. That's Dunning Krueger right there. In action.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
They genuinely thought they were good because they lacked the
very skill needed to even recognize good singing versus bad singing,
especially their own. They couldn't accurately judge.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
And it's not just singing, is that you see this everywhere.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
Oh countless areas. Think about the explosion of like self
taught experts online, especially in feels like fitness or maybe
financial advice.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
Right, someone watches a few videos.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Exactly read a few articles, and suddenly they feel totally
qualified to hand out health advice or complex investment strategies.
They're very limited understanding of, say, human physiology, your market
dynamics doesn't shake their confidence one bet.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
Because they don't know what.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
They don't know precisely. They just don't have the foundational
knowledge to grasp the sheer amount of nuance, the potential dangers,
the stuff they're completely missing.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Yeah, you see it all over social media.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Right.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
Anyone can become an expert after like minimal reading. Political
commentators dissecting global policy after skimming headlines.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Amateur chefs deciding they're ready to open a restaurant after
nailing one tricky recipe.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Yeah. The less someone genuinely knows, the simpler and more
absolute their view of the topic becomes, which just feeds
that inflated sense of mastery.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
It's a dangerous oversimplification. Complex problems rarely have simple answers.
But if your understanding is simple, the answers seem obvious, and.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
This widespread overconfidence it has some funny, almost absurd statistical
side effects, doesn't it.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
It really does. Yeah, the truth is, as a whole,
we're collectively not great at evaluating ourselves accurately. The stats
on this are kind of mind boggling and yeah, mathematically funny.
Like the driving example, exactly, the vast majority of people,
something like eighty eight percent believe they are better drivers
than the average person.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
Okay, wait, eighty eight percent. Think about that. You can't
all be better than.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Average, Mathematically impossible. By definition, only fifty percent can be
above the median average.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
It's like everyone's driving around thinking they're I don't know,
a Formula one racer in disguise pretty much.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
And it's not just you know, young guys taking risks.
Even elderly drivers consistently rate themselves among the best, despite
potential age related changes in reaction time or vision. It
just completely violates basic math.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Wow, so we're all delusional about our driving. What else?
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Well, if that's not enough, get this. One study found
an incredible ninety four percent of university professors believe they
do better work compared to their average colleague.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
Ninety four percent of university professors.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
Yep, think about that. This is a group of highly
educated people, their whole careers are built on critical thinking, objective.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
Analysis, and still almost all of them think they're better
than average.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
It just highlights how deep seated this self inflation bias is.
It seems almost universal. We consistently judge ourselves as better
than others to a degree that's just statistically impossible.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
It creates this weird, skewed reality where nearly everyone thinks
they're exceptional.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
It does, and that has real consequences, right for collapse, aberration,
for honest self improvement, maybe even for society progressing. If
everyone thinks they're already great, who's left to admit they
need to learn or improve?
Speaker 1 (18:09):
Okay, So the massive question then is why why does
being less skilled often make you more confident? It feels
so backwards. How does his self deception actually work?
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Yeah? It seems counterintuitive, right, but there's core mechanism at play.
Let's try to visualize it using an analogy like the
one in the source material about Mike the amateur photographer.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Okay, Mike the photographer, let's picture him.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
So let's think about Mike's perspective, he's learned a little
bit about photography. Maybe he knows how to use a
few basic camera settings, understand some simple rules about composition.
He can take a decent picture.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
Right, He's got the basics down.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
Maybe, But here's the critical part. Because his knowledge is limited,
he perceives the entire field of photography as being equally limited.
Or maybe more accurately, the stuff he doesn't know just
doesn't exist in his awareness.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
So his own little box of knowledge feels huge to him.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Exactly, it feels like it covers almost everything there is
to know about photography. In his mind. Maybe he thinks
he's already grasped, I don't know ninety percent of the
whole discipline.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
Because his idea of the whole discipline is actually really small.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Precisely, from his viewpoint, the total scope of photography seems
quite manageable. It's like, you know, looking at a small
pond and thinking you're seeing the whole ocean. So his
small amount of actual knowledge feels like a huge percentage
of that perceive total. He thinks he's practically an expert.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Because he literally has no idea just how much he
doesn't know.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
That's the key. Insight. He's completely unaware of that vast
gray area of unknown knowledge, all the deep, complex stuff
that actually defines professional photography, like you know, advanced lighting physics,
complex post processing techniques, the history of the art form,
the psychology of different lens choices. All that stuff is
(19:56):
invisible to him.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
So his incompetence in those areas actually prevents him from
even seeing that those areas exist.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
That's a great way to put it. His lack of
knowledge prevents him from perceiving the true extent of the field.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Okay, so that's Mike. Now contrast that with a pro.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Right, Let's imagine a professional photographer, someone who spent years
honing their craft, maybe went to art school, worked on
tons of shoots, study the greats. This professional has way
more knowledge than Mike. Their box of knowledge is significantly bigger,
filled with complex techniques, theory, practical experience. But crucially, they
also understand that the field of photography itself is much
(20:33):
much larger and more complex than Mike even imagines. The
pro is acutely aware of that immense gray area.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
They know how much they don't know exactly.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
They're aware of all the techniques they haven't mastered the theories.
They still need to explore the historical context they could
deepen the new equipment nuances. They see the vast unexplored
territory within their own art form.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
So even if the pro objectively knows where more let's
say they know seventy percent of the real field right,
that seventy percent might feel like a smaller percentage to
them because they see the true gigantic size of the
whole field. They see the huge mountains still left to climb.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
Precisely, that profound awareness of the unknown, that's what often
creates intellectual humility and true experts. They grasp the real complexity. Meanwhile,
Mike the amateur thinks he's nearly mastered the whole thing
simply because his picture of the whole thing is so
incredibly narrow and superficial.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
So Mike the amateur is super confident because he genuinely
doesn't know what he doesn't know. His ignorance protects his confidence.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
Yeah, his superficial grasp means he's oblivious to how intricate
the field really is. He truly believes he knows ninety
percent because he's perceived one hundred percent is just so
small and limited and This often gets reinforced by other
biases too, right, well, like confirmation bias. We tend to
look for information that confirms what we already believe. So
if Mike thinks he's good, he'll notice the good photos
(21:59):
he takes and ignore or the bad ones, or find
reasons why the bad ones weren't his fault makes it
harder to see his own limits.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
And that better than average thing we talked about.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
That's related too. It's sometimes called illusory superiority, the general
human tendency to overestimate our good qualities and underestimate our
flaws relative to others. That's basically Dunning Kruger playing out
across the population. Like with the drivers and professors, we
just tend to think we're better than we are.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Okay, but it gets even trickier, right because you said
even the experts can fall into a trap.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
Yes, it's a different kind of trap, but still related.
While experts the pros are usually much better at knowing
how much they know, they often make a different error.
What's that they tend to assume that other people are
as knowledgeable as they are. They project their own competence
onto others.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
Uh. The flip side of the beginner's mistake kind of.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
So imagine our professional photographer who knows they've mastered maybe
seventy percent of this vast complex field. They run into Mike,
who confidently declares he knows ninety percent.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
Of his tiny perceived feel right.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
In that moment, the expert might actually underestimate their own
substantial knowledge compared to Mike's seemingly high but totally illusory confidence.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
They might think, wow, Mike seems really sure of himself.
Maybe my seventy percent isn't actually that impressive exactly.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
They might struggle to imagine someone could be that confident
with so little actual skill. It just shows that really
we are all susceptible to the Dunning Krueger effect in
different ways. It reaches across all levels of competence.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
It's a blind spot even for the pros, leading them
to maybe misjudge their own standing when faced with someone
who's just confidently incorrect.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
It's a good reminder that truly understanding something isn't just
about knowing a lot. It's also about knowing how much
more there is to know, and being able to accurately
guess where other people are on that scale.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
Okay, so We've seen the weird stories, the studies, the
everyday examples, and the why behind this, this cognitive quirk.
The million dollar question now is how do we stop
ourselves from falling into this trap?
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Right?
Speaker 1 (24:04):
How do we break free from this illusion of expertise
and actually move towards genuine skill and just as importantly
accurate self assessment.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
Well, the main antidote, the core solution, really comes down
to two things, continuous learning and cultivating self awareness. Keep learning,
keep learning, Strive to educate yourself as much as possible
on the things you care about. Now, obviously you're not
accepted to know everything. Nobody can. But the pursuit of knowledge,
the act of digging deeper than just the surface level,
(24:33):
that's fundamentally transformative.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
It's not just about passively soaking up info, No.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
It's about actively engaging with it, really grappling with the complexities. Because,
as we discuss, there's that beautiful paradox, right, the more
you learn, the more you realize how little you actually
know in the grand scheme of things. It's not that
your knowledge shrinks, it's that your awareness of the vastness
of the subject grows exponentially.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
So the deeper you dive into something, or.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
You realize how complicated it is, how many unexplored corners
there are, how extensive the topic truly is. You become
keenly aware of all the things you don't yet understand
or know.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
I like that idea of the fanmine technique you mentioned.
Trying to explain something simply to someone else. If you can't,
it shows you where the gaps are in your own understanding.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Exactly, or things like space repetition for memorization, systematically revisiting
material forces you to see where your grasp is still weak.
These are active ways to test yourself, not just assume
you know it.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
Because the people who just kind of dabble on the surface, they'll.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
Likely never grasp the true extent of what they still
have to learn. Ye, their little box of knowledge stays small,
and so their perceived mastery stays artificially high.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
So true mastery comes with humility, often.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
Yes, a profound sense of humility, an understanding of the
huge intellectual landscapes still out there. It's about nurturing curiosity,
not just for what you know, but maybe even more
so for what you don't know yet. Being okay with uncertainty,
realizing learning never really ends.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
Yeah, I definitely felt that with history. I read a
few popular books, thought I had a decent handle on it.
Felt pretty confident, you know. But then I started actually
digging into specific periods, like really reading primary sources, looking
at different historians arguments about say the French Revolution or
the Cold War. It's complicated fast, Incredibly, I realized just
(26:25):
how unbelievably deep and complex even a single decade could be.
My initial confidence was totally born out of just ignorance
of the sheer volume of information and debate out there.
It really is that paradox. The more you know, the
more you realize how much you don't know. It's like
peeling an endless onion.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
And that brings us to the second powerful tool for
fighting this, the power of feedback and mentorship.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
Ah right, getting outside perspective exactly.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
Think back to the original Dunning Krueger experiment. Remember the
unskilled students, the ones who wildly overestimated themselves, actually got
better at estimating their own test results after they received
even just a little bit of tutoring on the schools
they lacked.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
So learning a bit helped them see themselves more clearly.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Yes, it wasn't necessarily about them instantly becoming experts. It
was about gaining just enough insight to realize what they
didn't know and how much more there was to learn.
It recalibrated their self assessment.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
That's such a powerful point. It's not just about getting
smarter in isolation.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
No, it's incredibly helpful to have someone who's ahead of
you on the path, someone with more experience, more knowledge,
who can actually show you what you haven't learned.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
Yet, Like they shine a light on those gray areas
you didn't even know existing exactly.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
Like handing you a map to this huge territory you
were completely unaware of.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
So for you listening, how do you apply that practically?
Speaker 2 (27:48):
It means actively seeking out mentors and that doesn't have
to be formal. It could be a senior colleague, a
more experienced person in your hobby, even just someone online
who's work you respect.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
And how do you ask for feedback effectively?
Speaker 2 (28:01):
Be specific? Instead of just asking how am I doing? How,
try asking something like what's one specific thing you think
I could improve in this presentation? And why? Get concrete examples?
And then the hard part, be genuinely open to constructive criticism.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
Yeah, that's tough. Nobody likes hearing criticism.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
It's really hard. Our egos naturally want to defend themselves.
But you have to try and distinguish between simple praise,
which feels good but doesn't help you grow, and detailed,
actionable feedback, which might sting a little bit, is actually valuable.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
So engage in real peer view, give and receive honest.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Thoughts yes, and cultivate an openness to different perspectives. Understand
that your current view might be limited precisely because you
haven't been exposed to other facets of the topic yet.
Embracing that external guidance is just vital for accurate self
assessment and real growth.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
But it's challenging, isn't it Overcoming this in ourselves. Our
brains kind of fight against it.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
Oh. Absolutely, our brains are wired to protect our self image.
There's that phenomenon called cognitive dissonance. When we encounter information
that contradicts our strong beliefs about ourselves, like I'm good
at this. It creates mental discomfort, and.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
We try to get rid of that discomfort right.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
Often the easiest way is to subconsciously reject the new information,
dismiss the feedback, or blame something else rather than update
our self perception. It's much easier than admitting, wow, maybe
I wasn't as good as I thought, especially.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
For something we felt really confident about exactly.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
This is where that intellectual humility becomes so important. It's
not about being wishy washy or lacking conviction. It's about
having an active awareness of the limits of your own.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
Knowledge, accepting there's always more to learn.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
Yeah, understanding that even with tons of knowledge, more always exists,
and our current understanding is always provisional. It can be
refined being comfortable saying I don't know or I need
to learn more about that. That's actually a sign of
real intelligence. It's the pathway to deeper, more accurate unders standing,
approaching things with a beginner's mind, even when you have experience. Wow. Okay,
(30:05):
So this deep dive has taken us from like a
truly bizarre bank robbery with lemon juice, with lemon juice
all the way to the really intricate workings of our
own minds. It shows how easily we can fool ourselves
into thinking we know more than we do, or sometimes
maybe even less than we do.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
It's a very human tendency, a blind spot. We'd pretty
much all share, just maybe to different degrees or in
different areas.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
And the core challenge really stays the same, doesn't it.
You just might not know what you don't.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
Know, and that's not meant to be discouraging. It should
actually feel empowering. It's an invitation, really, an invitation to
cultivate that intellectual humility, to embrace the fun of discovering
new things, and to really want to grow. So here's
a challenge for you, listening. Next time you feel really
truly confident that you know a lot about something, pause
(30:53):
for a second. Take a closer, maybe more critical look.
Could there be a gray area you have an explored yet?
Are there other viewpoints you haven't really considered. Who's someone
ahead of you that you could learn from, even if
it's just reading their stuff or listening to their take. Yeah,
because it just could be maybe that you're experiencing a
(31:14):
touch of the Dunning Krueger effect in that moment.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
It's a thought worth considering, Definitely.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
Something to mull over, a little mental check that could
honestly transform how you learn and grow, because realizing what
you don't know that's the first, absolutely essential step towards
actually knowing more and eventually becoming genuinely well informed. Thank
you so much for joining us on this deep dive
into the fascinating, slightly weird world the Dunning Krueger effect.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
Yeah, it's been great exploring it.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
We really hope this conversation gave you some valuable insights
into how our minds work, and maybe more importantly, how
you can navigate your own learning path with a bit
more self awareness and hopefully some genuine growth.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
Keep questioning things, keep learning, and keep diving deeper into
the topics that interest you. It's really in that contigue
u us exploration, that humble acceptance of the unknown, that
true understanding really starts to blossom.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
Absolutely. Until next time, stay curious and keep striving to
be better than yesterday.
Welcome to another deep dive. Today we're plunging into, well,
one of the most fascinating and honestly sometimes baffling parts
of how our minds work. Why we so often think
we're way better at something than we actually are. It's
a thing, and it can lead to some truly wild situations. Absolutely,
so if the kick us off, I want to take
you back picture this nineteen ninety five Pittsburgh. There's this
(00:23):
bizarre but totally true story.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
I think I know the one you mean, right.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
So imagine this guy. He walks into two different banks,
broad daylight, no mask, no real disguise, right out in
the open, totally smiles right at the surveillance cameras, robs
both banks, and then just confidently walks out. Okay, later
that evening the police find him pick him up. But
here's the kicker. When they slapped the cuffs on, he's
just completely bewildered.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Puzzle like, he has no idea why exactly.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
He keeps mumbling, but I wore the juice. I wore
the juice.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
The juice.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Yeah, and you're probably thinking, what juice like trupicana. Well,
it turns out this man MacArthur Wheeler he genuinely believed,
get this, that if he smeared lemon juice all over
his face, lemon juice, lemon juice, it would make him
invisible to the bank's security cameras.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Invisible because of lemon juice.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
His thinking apparently was that since lemon juice is used
for invisible inc well, obviously it would make him invisible
to cameras too. Flawless logic, right, Wow, that's ah.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
That's quite a leap. The level of conviction there is
just incredible, isn't it. Totally And what's really striking is
when the police showed him the surveillance tapes, you know,
the actual proof of him clear as day robbing the banks,
he was genuinely astonished. I didn't believe it, Nope, thought the
footage must be fake. The police checked him out, of course,
they didn't find him to be, you know, legally crazy
(01:48):
or high on drugs or anything.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
So just wrong.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Their conclusion was simply that he was incredibly misinformed and
just profoundly mistaken, despite being absolutely unshakably certain, he believed
in his invisible lemon juice trick.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
It's almost funny, but it also just makes you scratch
your head. You know, how could someone be that wrong
and that confident, so confident about something so easily disproven.
How could you have such like unwavering faith in this
completely wild idea even when staring at the evidence.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Well, this exact strangeness, this bewildering incident. It caught the
attention of two social psychologists, David Dunning and Justin Krueger.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Ah, okay, here we go.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
They started wondering what explains that kind of extreme confidence
when someone is so obviously undeniably incompetent. Right, this whole
lemon juice affair basically became the spark for their research
into what we now call a pretty significant cognitive bias,
the sort of systematic glitch in our thinking.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
A glitch, yeah, like a pattern where we just deviate
from rational judgment.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Precisely. Their main question really dug into that paradox, you know,
confidence versus confidence. They wanted to figure out the mechanisms
behind that kind of profound self deception.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
It's not just about being wrong, No.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
It's about being really wrong, being utterly convinced you're right,
so convinced that even you know, objective reality has trouble
getting through it, pointed them, towards a really fundamental human
blind spot, and.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
That is our mission for this deep dive today. We're
going to try and unravel this fascinating bias, understand where
it comes from, see how it pops up in our
everyday lives, because, believe.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Me, it does oh constantly.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
And most importantly, explore how you listening right now can
maybe recognize it, not just in other people, but uh,
let's be honest in ourselves too, and maybe how to
break free from it, you know, in your own journey
of learning and figuring things out. Yeah, because we've all
been a little bit like that bank robber at some point,
haven't we. Maybe not with lemon juice and surveillance cameras
(03:49):
hopefully not hopefully not, but definitely with like a totally
outsized sense of our own abilities in something. Okay, so
let's really untack this. Let's talk about the landmark study
that actually gave his whole phenomenon it's name, the Dunning
Krueger effect. Because Dunning and Kruger they didn't just stop at,
you know, puzzling over bizarre bank robbers. They decided to
take this into the lab.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Yeah, they wanted to investigate it systematically. In a controlled
setting to really understand this weird mental quirk.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
So what do they do well?
Speaker 2 (04:18):
They gathered a group of undergraduate students. Yeah, you know,
a pretty common group for these kinds of psych studies.
Very useful, sure, And they gave them a series of tests,
specifically tasks that required identifiable skills and had objective ways
to measure how well people did.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
Like what kind of tasks.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
They assessed things like grammatical writing ability, logical reasoning skills,
and even interestingly, their sense of humor.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Sense humor? How do you test that objectively?
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Well, it's complex, right, but it involves things like pattern recognition,
social understanding. They compared the student's ratings of jokes to
ratings by professional comedians. It's an area where you can
establish a sort of scale of competence from you know,
poor to excellent.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Okay, gotcha. So not just random tasks. They picked things
with a measurable skill level exactly.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
So they had the students do these tasks right, and
they scored them. They got objective scores on how well
they actually performed.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Okay, makes sense.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
But here's where it gets really interesting. This is the
genius part of their design. After the students finished, Dunning
and Krueger asked them this critical next question, which was
they asked each student to estimate their own overall score
on the tests they just took, and crucially to estimate
their relative rank, you know, compared to all the other
(05:35):
students in the group.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
So basically, how well do you think you did and
how do you think you stack up against everybody else?
Speaker 2 (05:41):
Precisely that self assessment piece was the key.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
And what did they find was everyone pretty accurate?
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Well, this is where they made their really fascinating discovery.
What they found was totally counterintuitive. It gave us the
core insight into this whole effect. They found basically two
different but connected sides of this self perception coin, a
big disconnect between what people think they know what they
actually know.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Okay, tell me about the first side, the one that
probably sounds more familiar.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Right, This is uh, the grand illusion of the low performers.
The main finding was pretty stark. The students who scored
the lowest on these tasks, the ones who were objectively
the least skilled in grammar, logic, humor whatever it was,
they consistently and significantly overestimated how well.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
They did overestimated, like by little.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Not just by a little a lot. They generally believed
they had scored above.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Average when they were actually when.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
In reality, their scores were among the absolute lowest. Yeah,
off and down in like the tenth or twelfth percentile. Yeah,
but they thought they were up around the sixtieth or
seventieth percentile.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Wow, that's that's a big gap.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
It's huge. The size of that overestimation is really important
to grasp. It wasn't just a minor bias. It was
a profound misjudgment. Like they were living in a totally
different reality regarding their skills.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
So what's the core insight there? Why were they so off?
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Well? It led to this key idea. These students weren't
just unskilled at the tasks themselves, they also lacked the
basic self awareness, the metacognitive skill to even recognize their
own lack of skill.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Ah okay, so the skill you need to do the
task is kind of the same skill you need to
judge how well you did it exactly.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
That's the crux of it. The very lack of skill
needed for the task often prevents accurate self assessment. It
creates this blind spot to your own limits. They literally
didn't even know just.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
How bad they were, so their incompetence was kind of
hidden from them by their incompetence.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Precisely, it creates the self reinforcing loop. Ignorance breeds confidence
in a way.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
Man, that's wild. I can totally relate to that grand
illusion though. I remember this one time I decided I
was going to bake sour dough bread.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Oh boy, ambitious. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
I'd watched a couple of YouTube videos, you know, read
a blog post, and I genuinely thought, yeah, I got this.
How hard can it be? Flower water? Right? Was last words, totally.
My confidence was like sky high. I was telling everyone
about this amazing artisanal bread I was gonna make, picturing
this perfect loaf, and the reality, the reality was, let's
just say, it looked more like a dense, sad hockey peck,
(08:14):
barely edible. It was awful.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Uh huh, been there.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
And I truly thought I was gonna nail it. It
was only after staring at that like rock hard disaster
that I realized I was well nowhere near being a baker.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Classic Dunning Krueger textbook case.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
For me, I had just enough knowledge to be dangerously
confident and absolutely zero clue about the actual complexity. You
really just don't know what you don't know, you know,
and you're so sure about that tiny bit you do
know mm mmmm.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
And then there's the other side of the coin, often
less talked about, but just as important and kind of paradoxical,
the subtle blind spot of the high performers.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
Okay, what about them? Were they accurate?
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Well? Dunning and Krueger found that the top scorers, the
students who genuinely aced the techs, they actually underestimated their performance.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
Underestimated really, they thought they did worse than they did, not.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Necessarily worse, but they underestimated their relative performance. They knew
they were better than average, sure, but because the tasks
felt easy to them, they tended to assume implicitly that
the tasks were easy for everyone. They didn't fully grasp
that their ability actually put them way up in the
top percentile compared to their peers.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
That's fascinating. It kind of flips your intuition, doesn't it.
You'd think the most competent people would be the most
accurate judges of their own skill.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
You would think so, yeah, But instead they kind of
project their own ease onto others. It's like thinking Oh,
that was pretty simple for me, so it must have
been simple for most people.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
It's almost like a form of empathy gone wrong, or
assuming everyone else finds it as easy.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Yeah. It might be related to something called the false
consensus effect, where we tend to overestimate how much other
people share our own perspectives or abilities. In this case,
it ironically leads the most competent people to slightly underestimate
their own relative standing.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
So they don't realize just how good they actually are compared.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
To others exactly. It often comes from that projection. Because
they're highly skilled, certain things feel straightforward, maybe even effortless
for them, right, and they implicitly assume the baseline is shared,
so it makes it harder for them to appreciate just
how rare or exceptional their own high level skill actually is.
It leads to this underestimation of their unique abilities.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
It just shows how tricky these biases are. They can
affect everyone, even the people at the top.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Absolutely true expertise often comes with the kind of humility actually,
a recognition that if something feels easy to you, it
might be precisely because you put in a ton of
effort to master it. Effort others haven't.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
Okay, so let's try and boil this down. Then, what's
the core definition of the Dunning Kruger effect?
Speaker 2 (10:52):
Okay? Simply put, it's that people with low ability at
a task often don't have the skills needed to recognize
their own.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Incompetence, the lack of self awareness.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Bit. Yes, and that poor self awareness leads them to
significantly overestimate their own capabilities.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
And you mentioned a confidence curve earlier, like a visual
way to think about this.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Yeah, it's a helpful analogy. Imagine a graphlin plotting confidence
against competence or skill. When you have very little skill
or knowledge, you're just starting out, your confidence can be
sky high.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
That's the mount stupid you mentioned.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Uh huh, Yeah, some people jokingly call it that. It's
this peak of irrational confidence born from just not knowing enough.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
Okay, Why is confidence so high then?
Speaker 2 (11:35):
Because at that early stage you simply don't know enough
to realize how vast the topic is. How much you
don't know, you're kind of blissfully unaware of all the
complexities involved.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Ignorance is bliss sort of.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
In a way.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Yes, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
But then as you start to learn a bit more,
as you scratch beneath the surface, That initial inflated confidence
usually takes a nose dive ah bites exactly. You start realizing, Wow,
there's way more to this than I thought. You see
how much you don't know how complex it really is,
and you might feel overwhelmed, maybe even less confident than
when you start it.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
That sounds like the valley of despair.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
That's another term sometimes used for it. Yeah, it's a
period of intellectual humility, maybe even some.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
Discouragement, But that's where the real learning starts, right when
you confront that ignorance.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Absolutely, and it's only when you push through that valley,
keep learning, persist through the discomfort and actually start reaching
an above average skill level that your confidence begins to
climb again.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
But it's a different kind of confidence.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Now, totally different. It's not the baseless bravado of Mount Stupid.
It's a confidence that's actually grounded in real competence, in experience,
and in a much deeper, more realistic understanding of the subject.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
So it's like a journey blissful ignorance, painful awareness, then
earned confidence.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
That's a great way to put it, and that visual
metaphor really helps show why the most dangerous place can
be just past the starting line, where your perceived knowledge
feels huge, but your actual understanding is still pretty shallow.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
Okay, so this isn't just about students taking grammar tests
in the lab, right, That's crucial to.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Understand, absolutely critical. This phenomenon isn't confined to specific cognitive
tasks or academic settings. It reaches further, much further. The
Dunning Kruger effect seems to extend its reach into practically
every part of our daily lives. It influences how we
see our own abilities and others' abilities all the time.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
So it doesn't really matter what the skill or.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Activity is, doesn't seem to the basic principle holes. The
less a person knows about any given activity, the more
likely they are to overestimate their skill and knowledge in it.
It's incredibly pervasive driving, cooking, managing, money, understanding politics, even
social skills.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
Yeah, you start thinking about it and you can see
it everywhere you listening right now? Where have you seen
this play out? Probably without even realizing it was the
Dunning Kruger effect, Like think about those reality TV talents
American idol auditions for instance, Oh perfect, exactly you get
this amazing mix of people, right, some are genuinely talented
singers and others, well, others are just not good, like
(14:11):
objectively not good.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
Right, But the confidence exactly.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Many of those who really lack talent show up with
this almost unshakable belief that they're the next big star.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
The ones who are truly terrible often seem to have
almost no idea how bad they actually sound. They step
on that stage just beaming with confidence, totally convinced they're
about to blow everyone away. Their self perception is just
completely out of sync with reality.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
And you see their faces when the judges give them
the bad news. It's not just disappointment, is it. It's
like genuine shock, confusion.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Little bewilderment.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Sometimes, Yeah, their confidence just crumbles right there because they're
finally hit with this external reality check that they completely
fail to see internally. That like tearful surprise when they
get rejected. That's Dunning Krueger right there. In action.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
They genuinely thought they were good because they lacked the
very skill needed to even recognize good singing versus bad singing,
especially their own. They couldn't accurately judge.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
And it's not just singing, is that you see this everywhere.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
Oh countless areas. Think about the explosion of like self
taught experts online, especially in feels like fitness or maybe
financial advice.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
Right, someone watches a few videos.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Exactly read a few articles, and suddenly they feel totally
qualified to hand out health advice or complex investment strategies.
They're very limited understanding of, say, human physiology, your market
dynamics doesn't shake their confidence one bet.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
Because they don't know what.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
They don't know precisely. They just don't have the foundational
knowledge to grasp the sheer amount of nuance, the potential dangers,
the stuff they're completely missing.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Yeah, you see it all over social media.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Right.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
Anyone can become an expert after like minimal reading. Political
commentators dissecting global policy after skimming headlines.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Amateur chefs deciding they're ready to open a restaurant after
nailing one tricky recipe.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Yeah. The less someone genuinely knows, the simpler and more
absolute their view of the topic becomes, which just feeds
that inflated sense of mastery.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
It's a dangerous oversimplification. Complex problems rarely have simple answers.
But if your understanding is simple, the answers seem obvious, and.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
This widespread overconfidence it has some funny, almost absurd statistical
side effects, doesn't it.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
It really does. Yeah, the truth is, as a whole,
we're collectively not great at evaluating ourselves accurately. The stats
on this are kind of mind boggling and yeah, mathematically funny.
Like the driving example, exactly, the vast majority of people,
something like eighty eight percent believe they are better drivers
than the average person.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
Okay, wait, eighty eight percent. Think about that. You can't
all be better than.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Average, Mathematically impossible. By definition, only fifty percent can be
above the median average.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
It's like everyone's driving around thinking they're I don't know,
a Formula one racer in disguise pretty much.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
And it's not just you know, young guys taking risks.
Even elderly drivers consistently rate themselves among the best, despite
potential age related changes in reaction time or vision. It
just completely violates basic math.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Wow, so we're all delusional about our driving. What else?
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Well, if that's not enough, get this. One study found
an incredible ninety four percent of university professors believe they
do better work compared to their average colleague.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
Ninety four percent of university professors.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
Yep, think about that. This is a group of highly
educated people, their whole careers are built on critical thinking, objective.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
Analysis, and still almost all of them think they're better
than average.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
It just highlights how deep seated this self inflation bias is.
It seems almost universal. We consistently judge ourselves as better
than others to a degree that's just statistically impossible.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
It creates this weird, skewed reality where nearly everyone thinks
they're exceptional.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
It does, and that has real consequences, right for collapse, aberration,
for honest self improvement, maybe even for society progressing. If
everyone thinks they're already great, who's left to admit they
need to learn or improve?
Speaker 1 (18:09):
Okay, So the massive question then is why why does
being less skilled often make you more confident? It feels
so backwards. How does his self deception actually work?
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Yeah? It seems counterintuitive, right, but there's core mechanism at play.
Let's try to visualize it using an analogy like the
one in the source material about Mike the amateur photographer.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Okay, Mike the photographer, let's picture him.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
So let's think about Mike's perspective, he's learned a little
bit about photography. Maybe he knows how to use a
few basic camera settings, understand some simple rules about composition.
He can take a decent picture.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
Right, He's got the basics down.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
Maybe, But here's the critical part. Because his knowledge is limited,
he perceives the entire field of photography as being equally limited.
Or maybe more accurately, the stuff he doesn't know just
doesn't exist in his awareness.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
So his own little box of knowledge feels huge to him.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Exactly, it feels like it covers almost everything there is
to know about photography. In his mind. Maybe he thinks
he's already grasped, I don't know ninety percent of the
whole discipline.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
Because his idea of the whole discipline is actually really small.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Precisely, from his viewpoint, the total scope of photography seems
quite manageable. It's like, you know, looking at a small
pond and thinking you're seeing the whole ocean. So his
small amount of actual knowledge feels like a huge percentage
of that perceive total. He thinks he's practically an expert.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Because he literally has no idea just how much he
doesn't know.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
That's the key. Insight. He's completely unaware of that vast
gray area of unknown knowledge, all the deep, complex stuff
that actually defines professional photography, like you know, advanced lighting physics,
complex post processing techniques, the history of the art form,
the psychology of different lens choices. All that stuff is
(19:56):
invisible to him.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
So his incompetence in those areas actually prevents him from
even seeing that those areas exist.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
That's a great way to put it. His lack of
knowledge prevents him from perceiving the true extent of the field.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Okay, so that's Mike. Now contrast that with a pro.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Right, Let's imagine a professional photographer, someone who spent years
honing their craft, maybe went to art school, worked on
tons of shoots, study the greats. This professional has way
more knowledge than Mike. Their box of knowledge is significantly bigger,
filled with complex techniques, theory, practical experience. But crucially, they
also understand that the field of photography itself is much
(20:33):
much larger and more complex than Mike even imagines. The
pro is acutely aware of that immense gray area.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
They know how much they don't know exactly.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
They're aware of all the techniques they haven't mastered the theories.
They still need to explore the historical context they could
deepen the new equipment nuances. They see the vast unexplored
territory within their own art form.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
So even if the pro objectively knows where more let's
say they know seventy percent of the real field right,
that seventy percent might feel like a smaller percentage to
them because they see the true gigantic size of the
whole field. They see the huge mountains still left to climb.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
Precisely, that profound awareness of the unknown, that's what often
creates intellectual humility and true experts. They grasp the real complexity. Meanwhile,
Mike the amateur thinks he's nearly mastered the whole thing
simply because his picture of the whole thing is so
incredibly narrow and superficial.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
So Mike the amateur is super confident because he genuinely
doesn't know what he doesn't know. His ignorance protects his confidence.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
Yeah, his superficial grasp means he's oblivious to how intricate
the field really is. He truly believes he knows ninety
percent because he's perceived one hundred percent is just so
small and limited and This often gets reinforced by other
biases too, right, well, like confirmation bias. We tend to
look for information that confirms what we already believe. So
if Mike thinks he's good, he'll notice the good photos
(21:59):
he takes and ignore or the bad ones, or find
reasons why the bad ones weren't his fault makes it
harder to see his own limits.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
And that better than average thing we talked about.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
That's related too. It's sometimes called illusory superiority, the general
human tendency to overestimate our good qualities and underestimate our
flaws relative to others. That's basically Dunning Kruger playing out
across the population. Like with the drivers and professors, we
just tend to think we're better than we are.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Okay, but it gets even trickier, right because you said
even the experts can fall into a trap.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
Yes, it's a different kind of trap, but still related.
While experts the pros are usually much better at knowing
how much they know, they often make a different error.
What's that they tend to assume that other people are
as knowledgeable as they are. They project their own competence
onto others.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
Uh. The flip side of the beginner's mistake kind of.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
So imagine our professional photographer who knows they've mastered maybe
seventy percent of this vast complex field. They run into Mike,
who confidently declares he knows ninety percent.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
Of his tiny perceived feel right.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
In that moment, the expert might actually underestimate their own
substantial knowledge compared to Mike's seemingly high but totally illusory confidence.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
They might think, wow, Mike seems really sure of himself.
Maybe my seventy percent isn't actually that impressive exactly.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
They might struggle to imagine someone could be that confident
with so little actual skill. It just shows that really
we are all susceptible to the Dunning Krueger effect in
different ways. It reaches across all levels of competence.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
It's a blind spot even for the pros, leading them
to maybe misjudge their own standing when faced with someone
who's just confidently incorrect.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
It's a good reminder that truly understanding something isn't just
about knowing a lot. It's also about knowing how much
more there is to know, and being able to accurately
guess where other people are on that scale.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
Okay, so We've seen the weird stories, the studies, the
everyday examples, and the why behind this, this cognitive quirk.
The million dollar question now is how do we stop
ourselves from falling into this trap?
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Right?
Speaker 1 (24:04):
How do we break free from this illusion of expertise
and actually move towards genuine skill and just as importantly
accurate self assessment.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
Well, the main antidote, the core solution, really comes down
to two things, continuous learning and cultivating self awareness. Keep learning,
keep learning, Strive to educate yourself as much as possible
on the things you care about. Now, obviously you're not
accepted to know everything. Nobody can. But the pursuit of knowledge,
the act of digging deeper than just the surface level,
(24:33):
that's fundamentally transformative.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
It's not just about passively soaking up info, No.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
It's about actively engaging with it, really grappling with the complexities. Because,
as we discuss, there's that beautiful paradox, right, the more
you learn, the more you realize how little you actually
know in the grand scheme of things. It's not that
your knowledge shrinks, it's that your awareness of the vastness
of the subject grows exponentially.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
So the deeper you dive into something, or.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
You realize how complicated it is, how many unexplored corners
there are, how extensive the topic truly is. You become
keenly aware of all the things you don't yet understand
or know.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
I like that idea of the fanmine technique you mentioned.
Trying to explain something simply to someone else. If you can't,
it shows you where the gaps are in your own understanding.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Exactly, or things like space repetition for memorization, systematically revisiting
material forces you to see where your grasp is still weak.
These are active ways to test yourself, not just assume
you know it.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
Because the people who just kind of dabble on the surface, they'll.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
Likely never grasp the true extent of what they still
have to learn. Ye, their little box of knowledge stays small,
and so their perceived mastery stays artificially high.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
So true mastery comes with humility, often.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
Yes, a profound sense of humility, an understanding of the
huge intellectual landscapes still out there. It's about nurturing curiosity,
not just for what you know, but maybe even more
so for what you don't know yet. Being okay with uncertainty,
realizing learning never really ends.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
Yeah, I definitely felt that with history. I read a
few popular books, thought I had a decent handle on it.
Felt pretty confident, you know. But then I started actually
digging into specific periods, like really reading primary sources, looking
at different historians arguments about say the French Revolution or
the Cold War. It's complicated fast, Incredibly, I realized just
(26:25):
how unbelievably deep and complex even a single decade could be.
My initial confidence was totally born out of just ignorance
of the sheer volume of information and debate out there.
It really is that paradox. The more you know, the
more you realize how much you don't know. It's like
peeling an endless onion.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
And that brings us to the second powerful tool for
fighting this, the power of feedback and mentorship.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
Ah right, getting outside perspective exactly.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
Think back to the original Dunning Krueger experiment. Remember the
unskilled students, the ones who wildly overestimated themselves, actually got
better at estimating their own test results after they received
even just a little bit of tutoring on the schools
they lacked.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
So learning a bit helped them see themselves more clearly.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Yes, it wasn't necessarily about them instantly becoming experts. It
was about gaining just enough insight to realize what they
didn't know and how much more there was to learn.
It recalibrated their self assessment.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
That's such a powerful point. It's not just about getting
smarter in isolation.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
No, it's incredibly helpful to have someone who's ahead of
you on the path, someone with more experience, more knowledge,
who can actually show you what you haven't learned.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
Yet, Like they shine a light on those gray areas
you didn't even know existing exactly.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
Like handing you a map to this huge territory you
were completely unaware of.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
So for you listening, how do you apply that practically?
Speaker 2 (27:48):
It means actively seeking out mentors and that doesn't have
to be formal. It could be a senior colleague, a
more experienced person in your hobby, even just someone online
who's work you respect.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
And how do you ask for feedback effectively?
Speaker 2 (28:01):
Be specific? Instead of just asking how am I doing? How,
try asking something like what's one specific thing you think
I could improve in this presentation? And why? Get concrete examples?
And then the hard part, be genuinely open to constructive criticism.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
Yeah, that's tough. Nobody likes hearing criticism.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
It's really hard. Our egos naturally want to defend themselves.
But you have to try and distinguish between simple praise,
which feels good but doesn't help you grow, and detailed,
actionable feedback, which might sting a little bit, is actually valuable.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
So engage in real peer view, give and receive honest.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Thoughts yes, and cultivate an openness to different perspectives. Understand
that your current view might be limited precisely because you
haven't been exposed to other facets of the topic yet.
Embracing that external guidance is just vital for accurate self
assessment and real growth.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
But it's challenging, isn't it Overcoming this in ourselves. Our
brains kind of fight against it.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
Oh. Absolutely, our brains are wired to protect our self image.
There's that phenomenon called cognitive dissonance. When we encounter information
that contradicts our strong beliefs about ourselves, like I'm good
at this. It creates mental discomfort, and.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
We try to get rid of that discomfort right.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
Often the easiest way is to subconsciously reject the new information,
dismiss the feedback, or blame something else rather than update
our self perception. It's much easier than admitting, wow, maybe
I wasn't as good as I thought, especially.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
For something we felt really confident about exactly.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
This is where that intellectual humility becomes so important. It's
not about being wishy washy or lacking conviction. It's about
having an active awareness of the limits of your own.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
Knowledge, accepting there's always more to learn.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
Yeah, understanding that even with tons of knowledge, more always exists,
and our current understanding is always provisional. It can be
refined being comfortable saying I don't know or I need
to learn more about that. That's actually a sign of
real intelligence. It's the pathway to deeper, more accurate unders standing,
approaching things with a beginner's mind, even when you have experience. Wow. Okay,
(30:05):
So this deep dive has taken us from like a
truly bizarre bank robbery with lemon juice, with lemon juice
all the way to the really intricate workings of our
own minds. It shows how easily we can fool ourselves
into thinking we know more than we do, or sometimes
maybe even less than we do.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
It's a very human tendency, a blind spot. We'd pretty
much all share, just maybe to different degrees or in
different areas.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
And the core challenge really stays the same, doesn't it.
You just might not know what you don't.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
Know, and that's not meant to be discouraging. It should
actually feel empowering. It's an invitation, really, an invitation to
cultivate that intellectual humility, to embrace the fun of discovering
new things, and to really want to grow. So here's
a challenge for you, listening. Next time you feel really
truly confident that you know a lot about something, pause
(30:53):
for a second. Take a closer, maybe more critical look.
Could there be a gray area you have an explored yet?
Are there other viewpoints you haven't really considered. Who's someone
ahead of you that you could learn from, even if
it's just reading their stuff or listening to their take. Yeah,
because it just could be maybe that you're experiencing a
(31:14):
touch of the Dunning Krueger effect in that moment.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
It's a thought worth considering, Definitely.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
Something to mull over, a little mental check that could
honestly transform how you learn and grow, because realizing what
you don't know that's the first, absolutely essential step towards
actually knowing more and eventually becoming genuinely well informed. Thank
you so much for joining us on this deep dive
into the fascinating, slightly weird world the Dunning Krueger effect.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
Yeah, it's been great exploring it.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
We really hope this conversation gave you some valuable insights
into how our minds work, and maybe more importantly, how
you can navigate your own learning path with a bit
more self awareness and hopefully some genuine growth.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
Keep questioning things, keep learning, and keep diving deeper into
the topics that interest you. It's really in that contigue
u us exploration, that humble acceptance of the unknown, that
true understanding really starts to blossom.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
Absolutely. Until next time, stay curious and keep striving to
be better than yesterday.
Popular Podcasts
New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce
Football’s funniest family duo — Jason Kelce of the Philadelphia Eagles and Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs — team up to provide next-level access to life in the league as it unfolds. The two brothers and Super Bowl champions drop weekly insights about the weekly slate of games and share their INSIDE perspectives on trending NFL news and sports headlines. They also endlessly rag on each other as brothers do, chat the latest in pop culture and welcome some very popular and well-known friends to chat with them. Check out new episodes every Wednesday. Follow New Heights on the Wondery App, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free, and get exclusive content on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And join our new membership for a unique fan experience by going to the New Heights YouTube channel now!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!