Incompetent? How Would I Know?

This article is a must read. Thanks, Ron, for sending it my way.

The article deals with a study that shows that people who are incompetent also lack the ability to realize that they are incompetent. Doesn't that just explain so much about so many people? Here are some highlights from the article:

People who do things badly are usually supremely confident of their abilities -- more confident, in fact, than people who do things well.

One reason that the ignorant also tend to be the blissfully self-assured, the researchers believe, is that the skills required for competence often are the same skills necessary to recognize competence...The incompetent, therefore, suffer doubly..."Not only do they reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it."

They found that subjects who scored in the lowest quartile on tests of logic, English grammar and humor were also the most likely to "grossly overestimate" how well they had performed.

Unlike their unskilled counterparts, the most able subjects in the study, Dr. Kruger and Dr. Dunning found, were likely to underestimate their own competence. The researchers attributed this to the fact that, in the absence of information about how others were doing, highly competent subjects assumed that others were performing as well as they were -- a phenomenon psychologists term the "false consensus effect."