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The Dunning–Kruger effect describes how people who do worst at a task tend to overestimate their own performance the most. The psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger described it in 1999, after testing students on logic, grammar and humour. It does not mean that every beginner is confidently wrong.

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Dunning and Kruger, then at Cornell University, published the study as “Unskilled and Unaware of It”. Students who scored in the bottom quarter did better than only about 12 per cent of their peers, yet guessed that they had beaten 62 per cent. The authors called this a dual burden: the knowledge needed to do something well is often the same knowledge needed to notice that it has been done badly. In one experiment, a short lesson in logic helped the weakest scorers judge their own results more accurately. Later researchers argued that much of the pattern may be statistical: when almost everyone rates themselves a little above average, the lowest scorers are bound to show the biggest gap, and computer simulations produce a similar curve. Dunning replies that the misjudgements are real, whatever their cause.

Türkçe oku
Dunning-Kruger etkisi, bir işte en zayıf kalanların kendi başarılarını en çok abartma eğilimini anlatır. Psikologlar David Dunning ve Justin Kruger bu eğilimi 1999'da, öğrencilere mantık, dil bilgisi ve mizah testleri uygulayarak ortaya koydu. Ama bu, her acemi yanıldığı hâlde kendinden emindir demek değildir.

Dunning ve Kruger o sırada Cornell Üniversitesi'ndeydi; çalışmalarını “Unskilled and Unaware of It” (Beceriksiz ve Bundan Habersiz) başlığıyla yayımladılar. Puanları en alttaki çeyreğe düşen öğrenciler, diğer katılımcıların yalnızca yüzde 12'sini geçebilmişti; oysa yüzde 62'sini geride bıraktıklarını sanıyorlardı. Yazarlar buna “çifte yük” dedi: Bir işi iyi yapmak için gereken bilgi, çoğu zaman o işin kötü yapıldığını fark etmek için gereken bilginin ta kendisidir. Deneylerden birinde kısa bir mantık dersi, en zayıf öğrencilerin kendi sonuçlarını daha doğru tahmin etmesini sağladı. Sonraki araştırmacılar, bu tablonun büyük kısmının istatistikten kaynaklanabileceğini savundu: Hemen herkes kendini ortalamanın biraz üstünde gördüğünde, tahminle gerçek puan arasındaki en büyük fark kaçınılmaz olarak en düşük puanı alanlarda çıkar; bilgisayar simülasyonları da benzer bir eğri üretir. Dunning ise nedeni ne olursa olsun, bu yanlış değerlendirmelerin gerçek olduğunu söylüyor.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Dunning–Kruger effect
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