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Salute to those who like to break someone else's account, today we have an article about the Dunning-Kruger effects: anosognosia and blindness of the incompetent.
We perceive the world around us with our senses. Everything that we see, hear and somehow feel in the form of a stream of data enters our brain. The brain evaluates the data, and based on it, we make a decision. This decision determines our next steps.
If the heat receptors in the mouth send us a signal that we are drinking boiling water, we will spit it out. When we sense that someone is about to harm us, we prepare to defend ourselves. When, while driving, we see that the brake lights of the car driving in front of us come on, our foot will instantly switch from the gas pedal to the brake pedal.
The rules by which our brain makes decisions are called mental models. Mental models are ideas stored in our brain about how the world around us works.
For each of our mental models, it is necessary to determine how much it corresponds to reality. This correspondence can be designated as its objectivity. The idea that by giving up a portion of ice cream, we will solve the problem of hunger in Africa, obviously has a very low measure of objectivity, but the likelihood that, having shot himself in the head, a person will die, is very high, that is, it has a high measure of objectivity ...
However, our brains have a tendency to succumb to the so-called Dunning-Kruger effect. This means that there are mental models in our heads that we sincerely believe in, even if they do not correspond to reality. In other words, our subjective ideas sometimes replace objective reality for us. Recent studies have shown that some of our subjective ideas about the structure of the world caused the same confidence as an objective fact of the type: 2 + 2 = 4, however, in absolute certainty, our brain is often mistaken.
One MacArthur Wheeler from Pittsburgh robbed two banks in broad daylight without any disguise. CCTV cameras recorded Wheeler's face, which made it possible for the police to quickly detain him. The offender was shocked by his arrest. After the arrest, looking around in disbelief, he said: "I smeared my face with juice."
Thief Wheeler was convinced that by smearing his face (including his eyes) with lemon juice, he would become invisible to video cameras. He believed in it so much that, having smeared himself with juice, he went to rob banks without fear. What is an absolutely absurd model for us is an irrefutable truth for him. Wheeler imparted absolutely subjective confidence to his biased model. He was subject to the Dunning-Kruger effect.
Wheeler's Lemon Thief inspired researchers David Dunning and Justin Kruger to study this phenomenon more closely. The researchers were interested in the difference between a person's real abilities and his perception of these abilities. They hypothesized that a person with insufficient ability suffers from two types of difficulties:
The study found two interesting trends:
Compared to the others, the competent realized that they were better than expected. Therefore, they corrected their self-esteem and began to evaluate themselves more objectively.
After contact with reality, those who were incompetent did not change their biased self-esteem. They were unable to admit that the abilities of others were better than their own. As Forrest Gump said, "every fool is for a fool."
The conclusion of the study is as follows: people who do not know do not know (do not realize) that they do not know. The incompetent has a tendency to significantly overestimate their own abilities, they cannot recognize the abilities of others and, when confronted with reality, do not change their assessment. For the sake of simplicity, let's say about people suffering from this problem that they have Dunning-Kruger (abbreviated DK). The study showed that people come to biased and erroneous conclusions, but their bias does not allow them to understand and admit it.
THE RESEARCH SHOWED TWO MAIN TRENDS:
I. COMPETENT TENDENCY TO UNDERESTIMATE THEMSELVES
II. THE UNCOMPETENT TEND TO OVERVIEW THEMSELVES.
The brain protects us with sweet ignorance
The fact that in the case of the Dunning-Kruger effect one could speak of a certain protective reaction of the human brain confirms a condition called anosognosia1. Let's give an example: a patient who has lost one of the limbs and suffers from anosognosia thinks that he still has this limb, and it is impossible to explain the opposite to him. When a doctor talks to a patient about his healthy left arm, the patient communicates normally. But as soon as it comes to the right hand, which he does not have, the patient pretends not to hear. Monitoring of brain activity showed that the patient does this unconsciously, his damaged brain blocks information indicating his own deficiency, even at a subconscious level. There were even cases when it was impossible to explain to a blind person that he was blind.
It was easier for the “lemon thief” brain to consider evidence as fictitious than to admit its own incompetence and bias.
At times, our brains, as in the case of anosognosia, reacts to information that indicates the fallacy of our mental models by simply ignoring it. Keeps us in a state of bias and sweet ignorance. What risk does this carry? Why should we strive for objectivity?
Anosognosia is the absence of a critical assessment by the patient of his defect or disease. It is observed mainly with damage to the right parietal lobe of the brain, in some cases it may indicate a severe mental disorder with a violation of criticism, in others - the warehouse of the patient's personality or the fact that he uses psychological defense mechanisms.
We perceive the world around us with our senses. Everything that we see, hear and somehow feel in the form of a stream of data enters our brain. The brain evaluates the data, and based on it, we make a decision. This decision determines our next steps.
If the heat receptors in the mouth send us a signal that we are drinking boiling water, we will spit it out. When we sense that someone is about to harm us, we prepare to defend ourselves. When, while driving, we see that the brake lights of the car driving in front of us come on, our foot will instantly switch from the gas pedal to the brake pedal.
The rules by which our brain makes decisions are called mental models. Mental models are ideas stored in our brain about how the world around us works.
For each of our mental models, it is necessary to determine how much it corresponds to reality. This correspondence can be designated as its objectivity. The idea that by giving up a portion of ice cream, we will solve the problem of hunger in Africa, obviously has a very low measure of objectivity, but the likelihood that, having shot himself in the head, a person will die, is very high, that is, it has a high measure of objectivity ...
However, our brains have a tendency to succumb to the so-called Dunning-Kruger effect. This means that there are mental models in our heads that we sincerely believe in, even if they do not correspond to reality. In other words, our subjective ideas sometimes replace objective reality for us. Recent studies have shown that some of our subjective ideas about the structure of the world caused the same confidence as an objective fact of the type: 2 + 2 = 4, however, in absolute certainty, our brain is often mistaken.
One MacArthur Wheeler from Pittsburgh robbed two banks in broad daylight without any disguise. CCTV cameras recorded Wheeler's face, which made it possible for the police to quickly detain him. The offender was shocked by his arrest. After the arrest, looking around in disbelief, he said: "I smeared my face with juice."
Thief Wheeler was convinced that by smearing his face (including his eyes) with lemon juice, he would become invisible to video cameras. He believed in it so much that, having smeared himself with juice, he went to rob banks without fear. What is an absolutely absurd model for us is an irrefutable truth for him. Wheeler imparted absolutely subjective confidence to his biased model. He was subject to the Dunning-Kruger effect.
Wheeler's Lemon Thief inspired researchers David Dunning and Justin Kruger to study this phenomenon more closely. The researchers were interested in the difference between a person's real abilities and his perception of these abilities. They hypothesized that a person with insufficient ability suffers from two types of difficulties:
- due to his inability, he makes the wrong decisions (for example, having smeared himself with lemon juice, he goes to rob banks);
- he is not able to realize that he made the wrong decision (Wheeler was not convinced of his inability to be "invisible" even the recordings of the video cameras, which he called falsified).
The study found two interesting trends:
- The least capable people (labeled as incompetent in the study) tended to overestimate their abilities significantly. In addition, the worse the abilities were, the more they rated themselves. For example, the more unbearable a person was, the more he thought he was funny. This fact has already been clearly formulated by Charles Darwin: "Ignorance often gives rise to confidence than knowledge";
- The most capable (designated as competent ) tended to underestimate their abilities. This is due to the fact that if a task seems simple to a person, then he gets the feeling that this task will be simple for everyone else.
Compared to the others, the competent realized that they were better than expected. Therefore, they corrected their self-esteem and began to evaluate themselves more objectively.
After contact with reality, those who were incompetent did not change their biased self-esteem. They were unable to admit that the abilities of others were better than their own. As Forrest Gump said, "every fool is for a fool."
The conclusion of the study is as follows: people who do not know do not know (do not realize) that they do not know. The incompetent has a tendency to significantly overestimate their own abilities, they cannot recognize the abilities of others and, when confronted with reality, do not change their assessment. For the sake of simplicity, let's say about people suffering from this problem that they have Dunning-Kruger (abbreviated DK). The study showed that people come to biased and erroneous conclusions, but their bias does not allow them to understand and admit it.
THE RESEARCH SHOWED TWO MAIN TRENDS:
I. COMPETENT TENDENCY TO UNDERESTIMATE THEMSELVES
II. THE UNCOMPETENT TEND TO OVERVIEW THEMSELVES.
The brain protects us with sweet ignorance
The fact that in the case of the Dunning-Kruger effect one could speak of a certain protective reaction of the human brain confirms a condition called anosognosia1. Let's give an example: a patient who has lost one of the limbs and suffers from anosognosia thinks that he still has this limb, and it is impossible to explain the opposite to him. When a doctor talks to a patient about his healthy left arm, the patient communicates normally. But as soon as it comes to the right hand, which he does not have, the patient pretends not to hear. Monitoring of brain activity showed that the patient does this unconsciously, his damaged brain blocks information indicating his own deficiency, even at a subconscious level. There were even cases when it was impossible to explain to a blind person that he was blind.
It was easier for the “lemon thief” brain to consider evidence as fictitious than to admit its own incompetence and bias.
At times, our brains, as in the case of anosognosia, reacts to information that indicates the fallacy of our mental models by simply ignoring it. Keeps us in a state of bias and sweet ignorance. What risk does this carry? Why should we strive for objectivity?
Anosognosia is the absence of a critical assessment by the patient of his defect or disease. It is observed mainly with damage to the right parietal lobe of the brain, in some cases it may indicate a severe mental disorder with a violation of criticism, in others - the warehouse of the patient's personality or the fact that he uses psychological defense mechanisms.
