Item — HN Reader

I find it kind of ironic that an article about misperceiving expertise fails to mention the Dunning-Krueger effect[0], especially with passages like:

> Imitators don’t know the limits of their expertise. Experts know what they know, and also know what they don’t know. [...] Imitators can’t. They can’t tell when they’re crossing the boundary into things they don’t understand.

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

2 comments

IMO Dunning-Krueger has become such a cliche that it’s more refreshing to _not_ read a reference to it in a piece where one could’ve been made. Kinda like quantum mechanics and that stupid cat in a box.

Agreed. In a bit of an ironic twist, the various folks I've encountered falling victim to the Dunning-Kreuger effect are themselves often eager to accuse others of being subject to it, as a sort of preemptive defense mechanism when an actual expert inevitably starts deconstructing the misinformation coming from the imitator.

I don't think that D–K really has much to do with it: as originally presented, it predicts that the worst performers tend to think of themselves as close-to-average performers, not as the best performers. (In particular, there's no "U curve" of self-assessment.) Imitation of expertise is more of a kind of personal bravado.

This is the funny thing about people who mention Dunning Kruger: they are often getting it wrong themselves.

The actual definition is what you said, while the popular definition is that the worst performers think they're experts.