Wednesday, February 06, 2019
More of Me, Less of You
It
is a modern phenomenon where humans consistently value themselves higher than
other people they know. Some folks blame it on social media. But it shows up in
all types of conversations and behaviors.
It
could be said that we are often acting
like we want “more of me, less of you.”
Said
another way, we tend to exaggerate our own
talents and diminish the talents of others. It is a bad trait. Even worse,
there is research to back this up as a growing trend.
Most
people are very good at something and less competent at something else.
However, we have all met someone who overestimates their knowledge or ability
on a certain topic or skill.
Worse,
some people are incompetent in a particular subject yet confidently insist that
they know everything.
For
a few weeks, there was a video on
Facebook of sheep chasing a scared, young sheepdog
all over a field. We can be like that sometimes. We claim greatest in an area
but then discover we are in over our head.
This
phenomenon has a name: cognitive bias of illusionary superiority. There was a
study in 1999 is now known as the Dunning-Kruger Effect or the competence vs. confidence study.
Dunning
and Kruger examined a group of undergraduate students in several categories. After
knowing the test scores, they asked the students to estimate their results.
They
found that the students who were less competent had the tendency to
overestimate their results, despite their test scores placing them in the
bottom percentile. Even more surprisingly, students who performed better at these
tests underestimated their results.
This
effect does not only happen in the academic field; it happens in almost every subject and situation. If you take a
closer look, you will find them everywhere.
The
pressing question is: “why are the least competent people usually the most
confident ones?”
The
least skilled person often overestimates their ability because they have no
idea how much they do not know. In other words, poor performers believe they
know everything in a particular subject, and
therefore they tend to be overconfident about it.
On
the other hand, high performers are fully aware of the vastness and complexity
of their field of work. They know how much they do not know and they usually
underestimate their ability and competence in a particular area.
In
contrast to high performers, poor performers also do not learn from feedback
suggesting a need to improve. Again, this is because they already believe they
know everything.
In
reality, the Dunning-Kruger Effect is not a joke. Instead, it is a cognitive
bias that negatively impacts our society from the individual to the
organizational level.
Incompetent
people rise to the top in all kinds of organizations because they are more
confident while real talent is buried due
to self-doubt.
Mix
this Dunning-Kruger Effect in with some modern narcissism (selfie-generation), and you find a very real challenge facing us in
communities and business.
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