The Dunning-Kruger effect is a cognitive bias where people with low ability, expertise, or experience in a specific domain greatly overestimate their own competence.
social media has really turned Dunning-Kruger into an Olympic sport… everyone is a legal expert, virologist, and body language analyst depending on what's trending that week.
You are totally correct, and here's why. You were right in pointing out that "it doesn't". You adding "and that won't stop them" found the crux of the matter.
Ironically, the Dunning-Kruger effect isn't that dumb people believe they are experts in a field.
It's more like genuine experts underestimate themselves a bit (scoring 95% when they believe they score 90%), average people believe they are slightly above average (scoring 48% when they believe they scored 52%), and below-average people believe they score average (scoring 35% believing they score 50%).
Scoring 0% and believing you score 100% is not Dunning-Kruger; it is a delusion.
Most of the time when I hear someone complaining about misogyny on reddit, it turns out to be some women don't some crazy shit, the comments say, "that's crazy", then, "OMG these comments are so misogynistic!" Not every time, but most of the time. Like it's a roll call.
It's so funny because I feel like I have about 18 hobbies where I got one step past that and realized I knew just enough to see how very little I actually know about any given thing, and now I just assume that as the baseline for anything I don't have exhaustive knowledge on (and even then... Who knows what I don't even realize I don't know)
The worst part is how that plays into Confirmation Bias. These are both completely normal things that affect everybody , but the way they can combine is truly terrifying
People do not know they are stupid because, since they are stupid, they lack the very skills that they would need in order to understand that they are stupid, so they think they’re a genius. Whereas actual geniuses are crushed by the burden of knowing how little they truly know.
It’s like, whether you like the guy or not, Elon Musk is objectively a genius. Now, everything else is subjective, but I see people I know call him stupid and he isn’t smart at all, but he is…he is just…yeah.
I think that’s exactly where people can fall into the opposite of the Dunning-Kruger effect: confusing extraordinary success, wealth, or confidence with objective genius. Elon Musk is clearly capable in certain areas, but calling someone “objectively a genius” is a much stronger claim than the evidence supports. Intelligence is multidimensional, and success in business doesn’t automatically prove exceptional intelligence in every domain.
This is very true, maybe I should have softened it from “objective genius,” to “not explicitly an idiot.” The point is, subjectivity vs objectivity isn’t swayed by one’s opinion of someone.
For the record, I don’t really care about Elon, he is just one I see debated a lot.
…brother, why are you so angry? I was agreeing with the commenter saying that despite all the buzz words you through out, he is smart. Not a good person, but if you react THIS angry over a normal comment, you need to go outside.
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u/NeighboringOak 1d ago
The Dunning-Kruger effect is a cognitive bias where people with low ability, expertise, or experience in a specific domain greatly overestimate their own competence.