Why smart people still do stupid things

Post date: Apr 29, 2018 2:27:8 AM

Why is it that smart people still do stupid things??? One of the reasons is a little known thinking fallacy, which is called the "Dunning–Kruger Effect..." This is a "cognitive bias in which unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly rating their ability much higher than average... This bias is attributed to a metacognitive inability of the unskilled to recognize their mistakes..."

What it means is that if we are completely ignorant and unskilled in a certain area, we often overestimate how well we will perform in this area... An example is cutting meat: if you watch a Butcher through a window cutting roasts, this looks fairly easy... Only when they tell you that it requires a full year of Butcher training to learn how to properly cut meat, you start to realize there is much more to cutting meat than meets the eye... This is the "Dunning-Kruger Effect" in action...

Needless to say that the Dunning-Kruger effect can wreak havoc on your best laid plans... Fortunately, people who are aware of this effect can anticipate and plan accordingly... As Albert Sloan, the iconic former Chairman of GM, once said: "The fact that we reach consensus quickly clearly means that we have not given the issue enough thought..."

If you encounter the Dunning-Kruger effect in others, keep in mind the words of Mark Twain: "Never argue with ignorant people... They will bring you down to their level and beat you with experience..."