Unskilled and unaware of it: How difficulties in recognizing one's own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments.

1999/01/01 by Justin Kruger, David Dunning · 2 voices · 7,004 citations
Psychology · Social Sciences · #Education and Critical Thinking Development #Emotional Intelligence and Performance #Lead (geology) #Psychological and Educational Research Studies #Psychology #Social desirability #Social psychology

paper · doi:10.1037/0022-3514.77.6.1121

published in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 77(6), 1121-1134 (American Psychological Association)

openalex publication_date 1999/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06

Abstract

People tend to hold overly favorable views of their abilities in many social and intellectual domains. The authors suggest that this overestimation occurs, in part, because people who are unskilled in these domains suffer a dual burden: Not only do these people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it. Across 4 studies, the authors found that participants scoring in the bottom quartile on tests of humor, grammar, and logic grossly overestimated their test performance and ability. Although their test scores put them in the 12th percentile, they estimated themselves to be in the 62nd. Several analyses linked this miscalibration to deficits in metacognitive skill, or the capacity to distinguish accuracy from error. Paradoxically, improving the skills of participants, and thus increasing their metacognitive competence, helped them recognize the limitations of their abilities.

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Discussions

• My all-time favorite in an Abstract: "...people who are unskilled ... suffer a dual burden: Not only do these people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence r [bsky, 3 points, 1 comments]
• The Dunning-Kruger Effect in Tech 🧠 Ever meet a - Dev in 2 weeks into learning AI who says, “I’ll build AGI”? - ML PhD says, “It’s complicated…” That’s Dunning-Kruger. Newbies overestimate. Experts [bsky, 1 points, 0 comments]

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