What psychological insight can we gain from the fact that 73% of Americans consider themselves above-average drivers?
Subject: Dunning-Kruger - The Lemon Juice Bank Robber
Event: McArthur Wheeler’s attempted bank robberies, 1995
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts. -Bertrand Russell
On this day in 1995, McArthur Wheeler robbed two banks in Pittsburgh. Surveillance video and the fact that Wheeler’s face was not covered made identification easy for authorities, and he was quickly identified and apprehended. When he was arrested, Wheeler was astonished that the police identified him, saying, “But I wore the juice!” Wheeler believed that the fact that he had covered his face with lemon juice before his heists would render him invisible to video cameras.
Image by Anja from Pixabay
Wheeler's brief career as a bank robber confirms the research of psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger of Cornell University which demonstrated that the more incompetent a person is, the more that person is likely to overestimate their competence.
In 1999, Kruger and Dunning published a study entitled “Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments.” In their paper they made specific reference to Wheeler’s robberies, a prime example of what we know today as the Dunning-Kruger Effect:
When people are incompetent in the strategies they adopt to achieve success and satisfaction, they suffer a dual burden: Not only do they reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it. Instead, like Mr. Wheeler, they are left with the erroneous impression they are doing just fine. (1)
Long before Dunning and Kruger’s research was conducted, many realized this tendency toward intellectual overconfidence. The ancient Greeks had a word for excessive pride and overconfidence. They called it hubris. And Shakespeare said, in the play As You Like It, “The fool thinks he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.” Charles Darwin also anticipated Dunning-Kruger, saying “Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.”
To confirm the Dunning-Kruger effect, try taking an informal poll, asking people whether or not they believe that they are above-average drivers. One survey revealed that 73% of Americans rated themselves as above average (2). Obviously, this is statistically impossible. There is also an interesting corollary to the Dunning-Kruger effect: while incompetent people overestimate their knowledge, the most competent people underestimate their knowledge. This brings to mind the intellectual humility of Socrates, who said, “I know one thing and that is that I know nothing.”
Self-confidence and self-esteem can be admirable traits; however, they should be tempered with intellectual humility, a realization that there is always room to learn more and an understanding that there are always reasons to question what you think you know for certain.
Recall, Recite, Retrieve, Ruminate, Reflect, Reason: What is the Dunning-Kruger Effect? How can Socrates remind us to be more intellectually humble?
Challenge - Write a short public service announcement (PSA) that informs and warns listeners of the dangers of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Try to show your audience why all of us should be a bit more humble about what we know and what we think we know.
ALSO ON THIS DAY:
April 19, 1776: The American Revolution began in Lexington-Concord with the “shot heard round the world.”
April 19, 1943: Today is known as “Bicycle Day,” because after he developed LSD in his lab, Albert Hofman intentionally ingested 250 micrograms of the drug and rode home on his bike. As he was riding, he began to feel the effects of the drug.
1-Morris, Errol. “The Anosognosic’s Dilemma: Something’s Wrong but You’ll Never Know What It Is (Part 1).” The New York Times 20 June 2010.
2-DeBord, Matthew. “Americans are dangerously overconfident in their driving skills —but they're about to get a harsh reality check.” Business Insider 25 Jan. 2018.
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