Dunning-Kruger effect
People with little skill in an area tend to overrate their ability, while top performers often underrate how they compare with others. Dunning and Kruger argued that beginners miss their own errors because spotting mistakes takes the same know-how as avoiding them.
Researchers still debate how large this effect is and what causes it, and some argue that much of the pattern comes from how the data are analyzed (regression to the mean) combined with our general habit of rating ourselves above average.
In everyday life
After a week of lessons, a beginner chess player feels ready to beat club players, while a veteran talks mostly about how much she still doesn't know.
After fixing one leaky faucet with the help of a video, you tell your family you can rewire the kitchen yourself, while the electrician next door says even she double-checks every job.
Why your mind does this
To act at all, we need some belief that our choices matter and that we can pull them off. A bit of extra confidence gets us moving, keeps us going after setbacks, and protects our sense of self-worth and our standing in a group.
How to spot it
Ask yourself how much you actually know about what experts in this area worry about.
How to counter it
Get feedback from someone skilled before you judge your own work, and ask them what beginners usually miss.
Same family: Confidence to act
- Overconfidence effect
- Social desirability bias
- Third-person effect
- False consensus effect
- Hard-easy effect
- Lake Wobegon effect
- Dunning-Kruger effect
- Egocentric bias
- Optimism bias
- Forer effect
- Barnum effect
- Self-serving bias
- Actor-observer bias
- Illusion of control
- Illusory superiority
- Fundamental attribution error
- Defensive attribution hypothesis
- Trait ascription bias
- Effort justification
- Risk compensation
- Peltzman effect
SourcesKruger & Dunning (1999)·Wikipedia