What Are They Thinking?

2021 Words5 Pages

There are many instances in today’s society when one will wonder, “What in the world is that person thinking?” This question may be asked regarding someone’s outfit, singing performance, or even career choice. How could someone be so wrong about their judgment or knowledge? The purpose of this paper is to provide some incite to how people could be so oblivious of their incompetence.
In 1999, David Dunning and Justin Kruger performed studies to test the competence of individuals and the effect of competence or incompetence on self-assessments. Dunning and Kruger stated, “…the skills that engender competence in a particular domain are often the very same skills necessary to evaluate competence in that domain-one’s own or anyone else’s” (Kruger & Dunning, 1999, p.1121). Therefore, incompetent people lack metacognition skills which are crucial to identifying how well one is performing.
In all areas of life, there are people who are not aware of the deficit between what they think they can do and their actual ability. Those who are less competent tend to overestimate their abilities while those who are more competent tend to underestimate their abilities. Studies show that bottom performers tend to overestimate their performance by approximately 30% (Hawes, 2010). Unskilled performers are said to have “illusory superiority” which causes the incompetent to overestimate their abilities. This leads the unskilled performers to “mistakenly rate their ability much higher than average (Lightfoot, 2012).”
An example of the Dunning-Kruger effect has been presented by Joe Lightfoot, Director and co-founder of Move. Eat. Treat. Lightfoot’s example explains how most healthcare professionals are not knowledgeable enough to provide lifestyle advi...

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...epress critical feedback because of social norms set forth in our culture. Fay, Jordan, and Ehrlinger (2012) state, “After a friend’s imperfect piano recital, we might keep our critiques to ourselves and, instead, imply that we enjoyed the performance immensely”(p.206). A little bit of criticism does a lot more good than a lot of empty praise. The Dunning-Kruger effect will continue to plague our society as long as we keep following social norms that encourage misleading feedback.
Conclusion
Obviously there is not one specific way to treat everyone who is incompetent. The goal though should be to increase the awareness of potential incompetence. One should not be assumed incompetent because they are arrogant or assumed competent because they are unconfident. Instead we should provide honest feedback to our peers while also seeking that same honesty from others.

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