The Dunning-Kruger Effect: The Incompetent Who Looks Competent

Incompetent people. We know them at all levels, from high positions in companies or political spheres. Of course, they are also present in those everyday scenarios in which we are forced to “deal” daily with people who look very competent when they are not. Do we also have to consider them toxic people? Of course. We are talking about the Dunning-Kruger effect.

Take, for example, those company managers who boast of their organizational capabilities, when in reality, they not only attack the rights of their workers, but their business project is unable to be maintained due to their clear ineptitude as a professional. Let us now look for another example, even closer and more problematic. The education of children.

Sometimes we see clearly harmful fathers and mothers, people incompetent to raise their children. However, they do not stop expressing “what good parents they are”. Parents who can confuse offering all kinds of whims to their children as an example of “being a good father”. Permissive models that generate a clear instability and immaturity in the little ones. Surely you have seen it sometime.

This behavior is actually a cognitive bias. There where the person has a completely wrong image of himself. A person who is not effective in what he does, who does not have knowledge, who makes mistakes, or who is simply not suitable for what he wants to “sell” us … And yet he likes to exalt his virtues.  This bias is also known as the Dunning-Kruger effect. We invite you to learn more about the subject.

The Dunning-Kruger effect

The Dunning-Kruger Effect is, as we have mentioned, a cognitive bias. The essential basis of this behavior, where the incompetent sees himself as competent, would be subject to these pillars:

• Lack of realism about one’s competence and abilities.
• Illusory superiority effect, which you must maintain at all costs.
• Low self-esteem That’s right, although it may seem surprising, the basis of all this is a clear low self-esteem that forces them to create these “illusions” in order to defend themselves, to protect themselves and to appear. And even more, by defending them fiercely until at the end, the personal balance and that lack of realism about one’s own incompetence is clearly lost.
• It is a meta-cognitive disability where you don’t see your own lack of competence. If they did see her, it would be like undermining their own confidence, and it would totally weaken them. And it is what they should avoid. That is to say, what initially arises to protect their low self-esteem, ends up becoming an authentic armor that they create themselves with total naturalness.

The Dunning-Krugger effect was coined by two psychologists from Cornell University, New York, Justin Kruger and David Dunning, after conducting several experiments and investigations published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in December 1999. In them, we see for example the difference between competent and incompetent people:

• Competent: They are people who see their performance or their ability as within the average. What’s more, it is common for them to doubt themselves and become interested in learning with the idea of ​​improving in whatever areas they are. They know that it is always possible to improve and excel. They also recognize the achievements of other people and are willing to focus on various options.

• Incompetent: They think that their abilities are above average, they are unable to see their shortcomings or lack of effectiveness, and they cannot even admit that others do things better than them.

How to live with an incompetent

As Charles Darwin once said, ignorance tends to provide more confidence than knowledge. It is a curious thing, but it is so. Surely on more than one occasion you have met those people who are unable to go beyond their own schemes and beliefs.

Then

As Francisco Ayala himself said, incompetence is more harmful when incompetent has more power. So, if your boss is incompetent, it is very difficult for us to tell him or even correct him. What is necessary is that you, within this context, try to do the job as well as possible.

If there comes a time when the incompetence of said leader affects your performance, and you end up having a negative image of yourself, you must act in one way or another. But we know, in work contexts it is always very complex to be able to react or make the incompetent person see that they are not working, that they are doing it badly and that the company project is not being maintained because of them.

But

There are many people who like to extol that of “I am the best father in the world”, “I am the best husband or the best wife in the world.” If it is not true, take action, make him see that his behavior brings mistakes and unhappiness. If they don’t see their own mistakes, they will never try to solve them. And in the personal and emotional sphere it is very important. It is worth keeping in mind.

Have you detected the Dunning-Kruger effect in people around you?