The quote above comes from the philosopher Bertrand Russell. Psychological research has now shown he was right.

The Dunning-Kruger effect is the finding that the poorest performers are the least aware of their own incompetence. The effect has been:

"...replicated among undergraduates completing a classroom exam (Dunning, Johnson, Ehrlinger, & Kruger, 2003), medical students assessing their interviewing skills (Hodges, Regehr, & Martin, 2001) clerks evaluating their performance (Edwards, Kellner, Sistrom, & Magyari, 2003), and medical lab technicians evaluating their on-the-job expertise (Haun, Zeringue, Leach, & Foley, 2000)." (From Ehrlinger et al., 2008)

The reason seems to be that poor performers fail to learn from their mistakes.

The proposed solution is that the incompetent should be directly told they are incompetent.

Unfortunately the problem is that incompetent people have probably been getting this type of feedback for years and failed to take much notice. Despite failing exams, messing up at work and irritating other people, the incompetent still don't believe they're incompetent.

As Socrates once said:

"The only true wisdom is to know that you know nothing."

But even this can go too far. It turns out that people with real talent tend to underestimate just how good they are. The root of this bias is that clever people tend to assume other people find things as easy as they do, when actually this is their talent shining through (read on: The Worse-Than-Average Effect: When You’re Better Than You Think).

Image credit: Helga Weber

Making Habits, Breaking Habits

In his new book, Jeremy Dean--psychologist and author of PsyBlog--looks at how habits work, why they are so hard to change, and how to break bad old cycles and develop new healthy, creative, happy habits.

→ "Making Habits, Breaking Habits", is available now on Amazon.

Reviews
The Bookseller, “Editor’s Pick,” 10/12/12 “Sensible and very readable…By far the most useful of this month’s New You offerings.”

Kirkus Reviews, 1/1/13 “Making changes does take longer than we may expect—no 30-day, 30-pounds-lighter quick fix—but by following the guidelines laid out by Dean, readers have a decent chance at establishing fulfilling, new patterns.”

Publishers Weekly, 12/10/12 “An accessible and informative guide for readers to take control of their lives.”

→ You can dip into the first chapter, or check it out on Amazon.com.