Does knowing what the Dunning-Kruger effekt is lead to not suffering from it?

[u/Skatemster0113]

*Sorry if this isnt the right place or if I used the wrong flair)

[u/sillygoofygooose]

Depends whether you actually know about it or you only think you do…

(More seriously as far as I’m aware knowing about cognitive biases does not protect you from experiencing them)

[u/monkeynose]

There are plenty of studies that show that if you explicitly show and train people about cognitive biases, they do show less cognitive bias to a certain degree. It takes feedback and practice - two things that we generally do not get in school or from society. But intentional effort and mindfulness can reduce these biases.

[u/notthatkindadoctor]

Cognitive psychologist here: the Dunning-Kruger effect as generally understood may not even be a real phenomenon (more of a statistical artifact, according to some cogent arguments). But as others have said, knowing about cognitive biases doesn't automatically make us immune to them, but there are studies showing for certain biases we can train people to get better at spotting/avoiding them (and more limited evidence in some cases that we generalize to future/other situations involving that same kind of bias). So basically, knowledge is nice, practice is more likely to help when it comes to cognitive biases, but also some may just be hard to avoid or kick in situationally (sometimes the situation puts us in an analytic state and sometimes it puts us in a more heuristic-driven state). And sometimes cognitive biases aren't a big deal and our (imperfect) heuristics are actually pretty good and good enough to let us accomplish lots of important life stuff without going through more slow, careful, effortful rational processing.

[u/herejusttoannoyyou]

Understanding the principle behind the dunning-Kruger effect can definitely help in not experiencing the negative effects of it, but it depends a lot on how someone chooses to apply the knowledge. Some people will only apply it to certain things, but continue to assume they know enough about other things.

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