The Dunning Cruger Effect

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The dunning cruger effect is when people who are not very good at singing think they're going to win a competition. People just haven't had the experience that's going to give them a more accurate clue as to where their skill actually lies. The information you use to produce your answer on american idol is exactly the same information or evidence you're using to judge yourself. And of course, everboyis trying to do the best th they can. They're probably hearing something that's pretty good. That is, what we hear internally is different from what other people are hearing and because of that, they think they're doing at least ok.

In this episode, we explore why we are unaware that we lack the skill to tell how unskilled and unaware we are.

The evidence gathered so far by psychologists and neuroscientists seems to suggest that each one of us has a relationship with our own ignorance, a dishonest, complicated relationship, and that dishonesty keeps us sane, happy, and willing to get out of bed in the morning. Part of that ignorance is a blind spot we each possess that obscures both our competence and incompetence called the Dunning-Kruger Effect.

It's a psychological phenomenon that arises sometimes in your life because you are generally very bad at self-assessment. If you have ever been confronted with the fact that you were in over your head, or that you had no idea what you were doing, or that you thought you were more skilled at something than you actually were – then you may have experienced this effect. It is very easy to be both unskilled and unaware of it, and in this episode we explore why that is with professor David Dunning, one of the researchers who coined the term and a scientist who continues to add to our understanding of the phenomenon.

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