An explanation I am not seeing: People may self-report opinions of their own performance that they feel are socially acceptable or socially protective of themselves. So it reverts to the mean because it remains within The Overton Window so to speak. If your objective performance falls far outside the norm, even if you know it and are confident this is true, people may not accept that fact and trying to insist on gett…
I’m a little worried about supplying any explanation because the DK paper didn’t study the general population at all, and nobody who participated was incompetent or lacking meta cognitive skills or representative of any of the other exaggerated terms they used. The participants were all Cornell undergrads volunteering for extra credit. That alone is such a huge red flag on the validity of this study that presumes to…
It's not a theory. It's a comment on a public forum, not a PhD thesis.
I've had some pertinent classes, like Intro to Psychology, Social Psychology, and Negotiation and Conflict Management. In my youth, I spent about 3.5 years in therapy to sort out baggage from childhood trauma. I've journaled and blogged for a lot of years, so introspection and trying to figure out what makes me tick is a longstanding habit.
I raised two special-needs sons who don't intuitively understand social stuff, so trying to explain things to them really helped hone my understanding of some things. I had to up my game by quite a lot to help them get a meaningful and useful understanding of social phenomenon.
Social phenomenon are inherently hard to find good information about. Studies tend to be really bad. People who know they are participating in a study almost by definition don't behave like the do "normally."
I continue to talk with my sons about social phenomenon because it remains an ongoing area of interest. My sons and I talk fairly often about what constitutes a good source of social insight and what doesn't. I comment about it sometimes on HN because I hang here and sometimes people find my comments of value.
It's my opinion. My opinions on such topics seem to generally be on more solid footing than average. They usually aren't, per se, backed up by some kind of scientific study, though they are generally informed by gathering solid tidbits of useful info over the years.
If you don't agree with it, it's totes fine.