Member-only story
How to Use The Dunning-Kruger Effect to Your Advantage
Sometimes delusions can be a good thing
Have you ever felt you were getting good at something despite not haven’t invested a lot of time and effort? That it wasn’t that hard? That you were a natural?
You probably were a victim of the Dunning-Kruger Effect (DKE), a cognitive bias in which people with low ability overestimate their level of proficiency.
Or put it more crudely: Stupid people don’t realize they are stupid.
I have fallen for DKE a number of times. It happens when you underestimate how difficult the task at hand is. It’s a case of “You don’t know what you don’t know”
The problem is, some people get stuck at this delusional level for life, making the same mistakes over again while being oblivious to it.
This graph shows the DKE curve and its evolution over time.
At the beginning stages of learning, confidence shots through the roof, despite the fact your actual proficiency level is close to zero. Then, reality kicks in and your confidence drops well below the peak. Paradoxically, at the bottom of the curve, you are quite…
