The Dunning Kruger Effect: Are You Really As Capable As You Think?
The Dunning-Kruger effect is a type of cognitive bias in which people believe that they are smarter and more capable than they really are. This psychological phenomenon first described based on a research conducted by David Dunning and Justin Kruger in 1999. Involving several participants for the research, they found that incompetent people are unable to accurately assess and recognize the quality of their own work. They also become poor performers when asked to perform a kind of job.
A few things can be the causes of the Dunning-Kruger effect, one of them is overconfidence. People with overconfidence have a tendency to admit that they are good enough (or even the best one) to do everything in their lives. This does not only happen to incompetent people but also the smart one. Smart people may think that every task is easy for them so they may become dismissive.
Being confident will indeed encourage us to be brave and more enthusiastic about doing and facing everything in front of us. But too much of it can also make us overestimating what we do not really have and what we cannot really do. At least there are some steps we can take rather than being overconfident.
1. Ask others for feedback
After completing the writing assignment, we might feel that it is the best result without realising that there must be imperfection on it. Such as writing errors or using unsuitable words. Here we really need feedback from others. Although at first, a critic may sound unpleasant to us but honest judgments from other people can really help us to be better than before.
2. Brainstorm what you do not know
Whenever people set a goal to achieve all the dreams, they will tend to jump forward to the end result. For example, most people are busy imagining themselves winning gold medals, becoming a director or entrepreneur, owning luxury apartment and car. However, they forget to think about what steps and adjustments they would need to make. Even worse, they do not even really understand the pain and effort needed to get there. Here we should think in detail because we need to get a more realistic picture of what to expect.
3. Keep learning
Rather than overestimating our ability, sometimes we also need to be humble and feel that there are many things we do not know. Thus, we will be encouraged to keep learning and digging deeper. The more likely we are to recognize how much there is still to learn, this can combat the tendency to assume we are expert, even if we are not.
4. Be prepared for the worst
A good optimistic attitude is when it has been equipped with the anticipation of the worst. Just like a successful investor never puts his eggs in only one basket. Preparing plan B does not mean it will distract us from our main goal. Instead, it will protect us from deep disappointment of the worst possibility that may happen in the future. Because sometimes it is not an outcome that betrays the efforts we did but it is just the way it is.
-Northern Ingo-
