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The Dunning-Kruger Effect Is Probably Not Real

mcgill.ca

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Re: The Dunning-Kruger Effect Is Probably Not Real

#21

Post by irrational »

emerged wrote: post #9
lr4444lr wrote: post #8

Personally speaking, it just struck me as odd that - outside of some rare exceptions - that someone could be so dumb that he'd actually be ignorant of his ineptitude. This is different than misrepresenting your ability. Lots of people do that for lots of reasons, but for someone to be so sheerly ignorant as is often given in the case examples struck me as someone who will sooner rather than later learn painful lesson…

The people I know who fall into this category construct an elaborate world view where they are the constant victim of all the idiots and jerks of the world. Everything that goes wrong is someone else’s fault, not their own ignorance and bad choices.

Every single relationship you’ve ever had has failed and it has always been the fault of the other person? Please tell me more.

Re: The Dunning-Kruger Effect Is Probably Not Real

#23

Post by jonnycomputer »

Could the article actually getting around to explaining the simulation using random data? Frustrating to read the things, and then just be shown a graph purportedly from random data and not explain how it was generated. Is it an artifact of using quartiles?

Re: The Dunning-Kruger Effect Is Probably Not Real

#24

Post by ajarmst »

Wait a sec’. The author admits the effect has been confirmed by others, then claims it’s probably not real because of a pair of studies (both from the same team) that even the authors admit support at least part of the Dunning-Kruger hypothesis (“It’s just that experts do that over a narrower range”). His confirmation is a couple of ad hoc unpublishable investigations? It’s almost like he might be overestimating his ability to evaluate the work. In particular, he seems to be more interested in refuting a popular perception of what the effect is rather than the more subtle claims that Dunning and Kruger actually made—another source of the type of errors predicted for those without expertise in a given field.

Re: The Dunning-Kruger Effect Is Probably Not Real

#25

Post by jonnycomputer »

kkwteh wrote: post #15

The supposed smoking gun in the article is that if we plot random values for perceived and actual ability we get a chart that looks a lot like the chart in the original study. I don't see how you make the leap from there to saying that the Dunning-Kruger effect is probably not real. The headline is totally overblown if you ask me.

I guess they could just be more epistemically modest and say that the data doesn't support the existence of the Dunning-Kruger effect, but doesn't make it not real.

Re: The Dunning-Kruger Effect Is Probably Not Real

#26

Post by Lxr »

The article doesn't explain what is actually going on to produce the second chart, but here is a guess. Assume people have a true ability x, an estimated ability y which is x + some unbiased noise, and a test score z which is also x + some unbiased noise. If you take a sample and collect the lowest quartile of test scores z, then the average of the estimated abilities y in that group is higher than z because the y are produced centered at x rather than centered at z. By collecting the lowest quartile of test scores, you didn't just get the dumbest people, you also got the people who happened to perform badly on the test that day. These people may be estimating their ability accurately, in which case the estimate would be higher than their randomly bad performance that day.

This seems like too obvious a mistake to not have been noticed for this long though.

Re: The Dunning-Kruger Effect Is Probably Not Real

#27

Post by Will_Do »

Isinlor wrote: post #14

Does this article actually contains explanation of what was wrong with the original study? Maybe I don't know how to read with understanding, but to me this article makes only two points: 1. The effect was about all people, not just dumb people. 2. The same graph can be obtained "by random". Point 1. makes sense, but 2. is left unexplained. There is a lot of words, but no content. Almost as if GPT-3 was writing it :)…

Yea I agree. It all relies on (2) but they do a very poor job explaining what exactly the simulation is. If there is a paper by McNight, it isn't cited and I can't find it. Can't find it on his webpage[0][1] or google scholar.

This is a non-trivial simulation so the details are really important! Shame they are nowhere to be found.

[0]: https://ibi.gmu.edu/faculty-directory/patrick-mcknight/ [1]:https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=sH44LC4AAAAJ...

Re: The Dunning-Kruger Effect Is Probably Not Real

#28

Post by mhh__ »

MeinBlutIstBlau wrote: post #12
emerged wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people I know who fall into this category construct an elaborate world view where they are the constant victim of all the idiots and jerks of the world. Everything that goes wrong is someone else’s fault, not their own ignorance and bad choices.

So half of reddit?

Maybe the HN delusions of grandeur effect is real after all

(...I like both, merry Christmas)

Re: The Dunning-Kruger Effect Is Probably Not Real

#30

Post by SoSoRoCoCo »

Isinlor wrote: post #14

Does this article actually contains explanation of what was wrong with the original study? Maybe I don't know how to read with understanding, but to me this article makes only two points: 1. The effect was about all people, not just dumb people. 2. The same graph can be obtained "by random". Point 1. makes sense, but 2. is left unexplained. There is a lot of words, but no content. Almost as if GPT-3 was writing it :)…

Exactly! Why does the author not tell us how the McKnight model works?

This is the only substantial claim the author makes, yet the result is delivered in two measly sentences.

I feel snookered.

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