J: In the study, they performed a series of four investigations. In one of the investigations, they asked 65 participants to rate how funny different jokes were. Some were poor at determining what other people would find funny, yet the same people described themselves having great judges of humor.
T: They found that incompetent people are not only poor performers, but are also unable to properly assess and recognize the quality of their own.
J: A perfect example of this is that when students earn failing scores on their exams, they feel they deserved a much higher score. This is overestimating their ability and knowledge, and are incapable of accepting the fact they made a poor performance.
T: There is also a big relation to metacognition, which is the awareness and understanding of one’s own thought processes. Most people fail to have a realistic view of their own abilities and instead inflate their ego. One can typically only evaluate themselves from their own narrow point of view.
J: We’ve all had friends growing up that believe they are expert in a field they just discovered the night before at 3am on YouTube.
T: And this leads into the fact we are all affected by the Dunning-Kruger Effect – this is why its so widespread. We all are incompetent in different areas of life, its impossible to be an expert at everything.
J: Self awareness of ones own abilities is crucial in attempting to not become a member of the Dunning-Kruger Club.
T: It’s impossible to learn everything there is to know in life – never stop learning. Criticism from other points of view is a good way to keep your reality in check. It’s easy for an ego to become inflated and this is where self awareness comes into play.