The type of people who know the least about politics.
People who think they know the most about politics actually understand the least, psychological research finds.
In other words, when it comes to politics, the most ignorant people are the most ignorant of their own ignorance.
It is another demonstration of the ‘Dunning-Kruger effect‘, which states that the poorest performers are the least aware of their own incompetence.
The reason for the Dunning-Kruger effect seems to be that poor performers fail to learn from their mistakes.
At the other end of the scale, those who know the most about politics are likely to downplay their knowledge, assuming that others know more.
For the research, 2,606 US adults completed two online surveys.
They were quizzed about various political facts, such as: who is the current Secretary of Energy, how long has a certain senator served and which political party controls the House of Representatives.
In general, people did poorly on the quiz, but those who did worst were also the ones who were most overconfident.
As the philosopher Bertrand Russell said:
“One of the painful things about our time is that those who feel certainty are stupid, and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision.”
The study was published in the journal Political Psychology (Anson, 2018).
