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.
“There is no elevator to success, you have to take the stairs,” was said by motivational speaker and American author Zig Ziglar. This relates to Carol S. Dweck’s article “Brainology” and Sherman Alexie’s essay “Superman and Me.” Ziglar, Dweck, and Alexie all feel that it isn’t easy for someone to become successful. It takes hard work, perseverance, and the want to learn and grow. In Dweck’s article, she stated that someone with a growth mindset would become more successful and knowledgeable than someone with a fixed mindset, which was demonstrated by Alexie in his essay, and by a personal experience of my own.
People with growth mind-sets often believe that one can succeed simply by trying and having the motivation to do so. On the other hand, those with fixed mind-sets believe they are either good or bad at something, while attempting something for the first time. If one can easily do math while another can’t, the one who can’t accepts it and doesn’t feel the need to try succeeding further because they’re just not good at it in the first place.
The purpose of this story was to illustrate the importance of how people view themselves and their abilities.
As I read the part on low expectations, I found myself agreeing with Cose. One of his fellow employees of the New York Daily News talked about his career being blocked. His own expectations of himself were causing him no room to grow. Conrad Harper commented that if someone is constantly being told he can never amount to anything better, he will in fact start questioning his own abilities.
Results of students who received praise for intelligence: The students in this category had negative results after receiving praising. When asked afterwards if they wanted to do the same level of problems or try more challenging ones, they chose the task that would allow them to look smart and do well on. Consequently, while telling a child how smart he or she is, we are sending a message to not take risks and just look the part. Afterwards, these children were given a hard task, which they performed poorly on, and they know longer liked the problems and did not want to practice them at home. Children also felt “dumb” and when given the initial task (in which they did well), they performed significantly worse. Lastly, their opinions of intelligence reflected that it was an innate capacity as though you cannot improve.
Gray, S. W., & Zide, M. R. (2007). An introduction to the competency-based assessment model.
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