Our Flawed Self-Assessments
December 4, 2014 at 7:15 pm
(This post was last modified: December 4, 2014 at 7:22 pm by Rayaan.)
We humans tend to feel fairly confident in how we perceive ourselves.
But in the field of psychology, it's been demonstrated that, whether we like it or not, we are most likely far worse at self-assessment than we think we are. Our ability of self-assessment, although maybe it is superior to that of other animals, is one that has shown to be flawed in interesting (and even quite surprising) ways.
For example, one thing is that we tend to overestimate our positive qualities and underestimate the negative ones. This is known as "illusory superiority," or the "above average effect," amongst various other names.
"Illusory superiority is a cognitive bias whereby individuals overestimate their own qualities and abilities, relative to others. This is evident in a variety of areas including intelligence, performance on tasks or tests, and the possession of desirable characteristics or personality traits. It is one of many positive illusions relating to the self, and is a phenomenon studied in social psychology." - Wikipedia
A more specific case of the illusory superiority bias is the Freddy-Krueger effect. What?! Whoops, my bad. I apologize. It's called the Dunning-Kruger effect:
"The Dunning-Kruger effect, named after David Dunning and Justin Kruger of Cornell University, occurs where people fail to adequately assess their level of competence — or specifically, their incompetence — at a task and thus consider themselves much more competent than everyone else. This lack of awareness is attributed to their lower level of competence robbing them of the ability to critically analyse their performance, leading to a significant overestimate of themselves. Put more crudely, they're too stupid to realize they're stupid." - RationalWiki
Here are some of the original materials on the subject:
Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments
Flawed Self-Assessment: Implications for Health, Education, and the Workplace
Come to think of it, what would ever make anyone perceive that perhaps we are all confident idiots?
No wonder there was all this fervor about "Know thyself" for the ancients.
But in the field of psychology, it's been demonstrated that, whether we like it or not, we are most likely far worse at self-assessment than we think we are. Our ability of self-assessment, although maybe it is superior to that of other animals, is one that has shown to be flawed in interesting (and even quite surprising) ways.
For example, one thing is that we tend to overestimate our positive qualities and underestimate the negative ones. This is known as "illusory superiority," or the "above average effect," amongst various other names.
"Illusory superiority is a cognitive bias whereby individuals overestimate their own qualities and abilities, relative to others. This is evident in a variety of areas including intelligence, performance on tasks or tests, and the possession of desirable characteristics or personality traits. It is one of many positive illusions relating to the self, and is a phenomenon studied in social psychology." - Wikipedia
A more specific case of the illusory superiority bias is the Freddy-Krueger effect. What?! Whoops, my bad. I apologize. It's called the Dunning-Kruger effect:
"The Dunning-Kruger effect, named after David Dunning and Justin Kruger of Cornell University, occurs where people fail to adequately assess their level of competence — or specifically, their incompetence — at a task and thus consider themselves much more competent than everyone else. This lack of awareness is attributed to their lower level of competence robbing them of the ability to critically analyse their performance, leading to a significant overestimate of themselves. Put more crudely, they're too stupid to realize they're stupid." - RationalWiki
Here are some of the original materials on the subject:
Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments
Flawed Self-Assessment: Implications for Health, Education, and the Workplace
Come to think of it, what would ever make anyone perceive that perhaps we are all confident idiots?
No wonder there was all this fervor about "Know thyself" for the ancients.
