BrainStuff Classics: Are Less Experienced People More Confident?

You may have heard about the supposed inverse relationship between confidence and knowledge -- but is it true? Learn more about the Dunning-Kruger effect in this classic episode of BrainStuff.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to brain Stuff production of iHeart Radio. Hey brain Stuff,
Lauren voke Obam here with an episode from the archives
for you back when our host was one Christian Sagar.
This is one that's come up, and I think all
of our conversations and frustrations lately are less informed people
more confident. And if so, why, Hey brain Stuff, it's

(00:28):
me Christian Sager. If you're like most people, you think
you're very good at some things and are able to
admit you're less good at others, you probably think you're
superbly talented in one or two areas. Hey, you may
be right. You try to be honest with yourself about
your strong points and your weak ones, and you likely
shake your head in pity at people you see as

(00:48):
well stupid. You say things like, why don't they understand
that they're bad at doing stuff? Well, there is an answer,
but you're not gonna like it. And this answer doesn't
just apply to people you think of as dumb. It
applies to everyone on earth, including you and me. It's
not a matter of intelligence, necessarily a difficult thing to measure,

(01:09):
but it is related to competence, the ability to do
something well. In A psychologist named David Dunning and his
grad assistant Justin Krueger tested a group of students in
several categories, the ability to think logically, to write chromatically,
and to spot funny jokes. They also asked the students

(01:31):
to rate their skills in these categories, that is, when
they notice something weird. The people scoring below average on
these tests were just incompetent in these categories. They also
didn't know they were incompetent. And here's the kicker. The
less competent they were, the more competent they ranked themselves.

(01:51):
This is a phenomenon called illusory superiority. This is a
cognitive bias wherein people tend to rate their own abilities
as above average. Multiple studies have proven this effect in
everything from firearms to college debates and med students opinions
of their interviewing skills. It doesn't seem to matter what

(02:13):
specific skill we're talking about. The less a person knows
about it, the more likely they are to overestimate their knowledge.
While Dunning and Krueger popularize this effect in modern society,
they weren't the first people to notice the relationship between confidence, modesty,
and skill. Philosophers throughout the ages have contemplated this idea,
like Bertrand Russell, who famously wrote the trouble with the

(02:36):
world is that the stupid are cock sure and the
intelligent are full of doubt. And here's another weird thing.
People with actual competency are likely to actually underestimate their abilities.
Researchers believe this modesty comes because competent people are more
aware of how much they don't actually know, as well
as their field in general, they also consistently overestimate the

(03:00):
performance ability of others. It all goes back to one
primary thing, meta cognition. Meta cognition is the ability to
be aware of and understand your own thought process. In
other words, the ability to think about how you think.
People tend to evaluate themselves through what Dunning and Krueger

(03:22):
called a top down approach. Instead of objectively measuring their performance,
people start with their preconceived notions of their skill and
use that belief to evaluate their performance. Today's episode was
written by Ben Bullen and produced by Tyler Clang. Brain

(03:42):
Stuff is a production of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works.
For more in this and lots of other relatively well
informed topics, visit our home planet how Stuff Works Dot
com and for more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit
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