Avoiding the Pitfalls of the Dunning-Kruger Effect and Groupthink (original) (raw)

The Dunning-Kruger Effect Strikes Again!

The paper seeks to analyze the rhetoric and methodology of the New Atheist pundit David G. McAfee. His internet activity and publications will be used as the data to examine his bias and how the Dunning-Kruger Effect is the most plausible explanation for the bias prevalent in his work.

A rational model of the Dunning–Kruger effect supports insensitivity to evidence in low performers

Nature Human Behaviour

I n copious work studying adult metacognition, participants appear to be miscalibrated in their ability to judge their own performance across a large variety of domains 1-3. Although there are age-related improvements in metacognitive abilities whereby very young children overestimate their competence a great deal more than adults 4 , as well as differences by domain 5,6 , on most tasks, researchers find that accuracy is low when making judgments about one's performance, when estimating either one's score or standing relative to others 3. There have been studies of specific domains such as weather forecasting 5 and particular ways of eliciting judgments 7 where participants do show much better calibration to their own abilities, but, in most settings, accuracy is typically limited. In an influential paper, Kruger and Dunning conducted a series of studies that suggested that poorer performers tended to be less well calibrated in their ability to judge their performance after completing a task than higher performers 8. They construed poor perceived performance by the lowest-scoring individuals as a metacognitive deficit: the worst performers lacked the skills needed to correctly do the task and also to judge their performance on the task. Commonly known as the Dunning-Kruger effect, this theory continues to be featured regularly in the media 9 , particularly for the purpose of rationalizing others' seemingly irrational behavior (for example, anti-vaxxers 10 and government officials 11). Although discussions of the overconfidence of poor performers have focused on the idea that these people are less sensitive to their own errors, thinking about self-assessment from the perspective of a rational agent potentially offers a different account. If we imagine individuals as naive statisticians analyzing their own behavior, the rational Bayesian solution is to combine the evidence from experience with one's prior beliefs. If those prior beliefs are that one will perform relatively well, this should lead to poor performers overestimating their ability and good performers underestimating their ability to at least some extent 12. This alternative explanation engages with a different point than previous controversy over the Dunning-Kruger effect. Krueger

Impact of the Dunning Kruger Effect on Psychology Students at the University of Cuenca

Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, 2017

The overestimation of individual skills or abilities seems to be part of the reality of the human being, when it has not been previously acquired enough of them, can be an obstacle in making appropriate decisions in our daily life, and can also be an indicator of the poor metacognitive ability of an individual. The study of Psychology, sometimes requires the persons involved, complete by themselves, certain questionnaires, to guide the diagnosis of specialists. In this exploratory study, a random sample of 78 students from the Faculty of Psychology of the University of Cuenca was selected, who voluntarily agreed to participate. The results show a behavior that follows the theory raised in the Dunning-Kruger Effect, for the Logic and Vocabulary areas, however it differs in relation to the Humor scale, where the tendency of the self-evaluation with respect to the results from the test follows a direct correlation.

The Dunning-Kruger Effect in Emirati College Students: Evidence for Generalizability Across Cultures

Past research reports higher levels of overconfidence for low performers compared to more proficient performers. This finding has been attributed to low performers' lack of insight into their cognitive processes, and it is referred as the Dunning-Kruger effect. This effect has been replicated across various tasks and domains. To date, however, there have been very limited explorations of the Dunning-Kruger effect in individuals from Non-Western, collectivist countries, where self-enhancing biases might be less prevalent. The aim of this study is to explore whether the Dunning-Kruger effect is also demonstrated among Arab, college students in the United Arab Emirates. Emirati, female college students completed a matrix reasoning task and subsequently assessed their own performance on it by estimating their raw score. The results replicated the Dunning-Kruger effect. Participants scoring in the lowest quartile significantly overestimated their performance and demonstrated levels of overconfidence significantly higher than that of more proficient peers. This study extends our understanding of overconfidence and the Dunning-Kruger effect to the Arab world. The results are discussed with reference to proposed underlying mechanisms.

DUNNING-KRUGER DEBATE AND STUDENTS´ ASSESSMENT

Marketing Identity : Digital Mirrors - part I., 2018

Our evaluations saturate our decisions. Presented paper seeks to contribute to the fruitful topic of Dunning-Kruger effect and for the first time points to its implications within the field of marketing communication. Dunning-Kruger effect stems from the differences between self-assessment and actual performance (across various domains) with low performers overestimating their scores and top performers largely underestimating themselves. Paper discusses possible influencing variables and presents a related research of 880 undergraduate students looking for differences between estimated (perceived) and actual exam performance. We suggest it is important to be aware of students´ self-evaluation of exam performances because it affects not only their self-perceptions, but perceptions of teachers, courses and university.

Can Confirmation Bias Improve Group Learning?

Philosophy of Science, 2024

Confirmation bias has been widely studied for its role in failures of reasoning. Individuals exhibiting confirmation bias fail to engage with information that contradicts their current beliefs, and, as a result, can fail to abandon inaccurate beliefs. But although most investigations of confirmation bias focus on individual learning, human knowledge is typically developed within a social structure. We use network models to show that moderate confirmation bias often improves group learning. However, a downside is that a stronger form of confirmation bias can hurt the knowledge producing capacity of the community.

Dunning-Kruger Effect: Intuitive Errors Predict Overconfidence on the Cognitive Reflection Test

Frontiers in Psychology, 2021

The Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT) is a measure of analytical reasoning that cues an intuitive but incorrect response that must be rejected for successful performance to be attained. The CRT yields two types of errors: Intuitive errors, which are attributed to Type 1 processes; and non-intuitive errors, which result from poor numeracy skills or deficient reasoning. Past research shows that participants who commit the highest numbers of errors on the CRT overestimate their performance the most, whereas those with the lowest error-rates tend to slightly underestimate. This is an example of the Dunning-Kruger Effect (DKE). The present study examined how intuitive vs. non-intuitive errors contribute to overestimation in the CRT at different levels of performance. Female undergraduate students completed a seven-item CRT test and subsequently estimated their raw score. They also filled out the Faith in Intuition (FI) questionnaire, which is a dispositional measure of intuitive thinking. ...

Modeling the Dunning-Kruger Effect: A Rational Account of Inaccurate Self-Assessment

Cognitive Science, 2018

Self-assessment, or the evaluation of one’s ability on a task, is widely perceived as a fundamental skill, yet in most studies, people are found to be poorly calibrated to their own abilities. Some results seem to show poorer calibration for low performers than for high performers. This effect has been explained in multiple ways: it could indicate worse metacognitive ability among the low performers (the “Dunning-Kruger” effect), or simply regression to the mean. To tease apart these explanations we develop a Bayesian model of self-assessment and evaluate its predictions in two experiments. Our results suggest that poor self-assessment is caused by the influence of prior beliefs and imperfect skill at determining whether a problem was solved correctly or not, and offer only weak support for of a relationship between metacognitive ability and performance.