Why are there so many self-confident ignoramuses around?

[Tomcat]

"One of the unpleasant characteristics of our time is that those who are confident are stupid, and those who have at least some imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision." (Bertrand Russell)

Surely you were in a situation where your interlocutor understands little about a specific issue, but at the same time considers himself an expert. This phenomenon has a scientific name - the Dunning-Kruger effect.

Often incompetent people think they know more than they really do and like to boast about it. Worst of all, when it is your bosses or higher management. The question arises: "How did this ignorant person achieve a high position?" Let's try to figure out why this is happening.

People, evaluating themselves, are guided by one of two basic principles:
- Comparing yourself to others
- Situation analysis

People from the first group are just those who do not know anything, but they always know how to))) You come across them every day, their motto in life is: “Nonsense! Everyone can do it! "Their leading type of thinking is empirical; they see only the external properties of objects and phenomena, without delving into content and nature.

Such a person observes only the tip of the iceberg and does not think at all about what is hidden under the water. This is partly due to a lack of knowledge and the ability to calculate the consequences and possible paths of the situation. The experience of this group is small, and there is no reason to doubt their own abilities, and what others say there does not bother them. They are confident in themselves and do not consider their mistakes as mistakes, believing that all their mistakes are the influence of external circumstances that do not depend on them personally: “it's not me, it's crooked nails,” “the bathtub would have risen as it should if the legs were screwed on. to the floor ”,“ I developed it, but production shook ”, etc. Such people do not experience any reflection, if something went wrong - they just confidently move on. To some extent, it is easier for them to live: they are happily ignorant of many aspects of life.

Studies of the Dunning-Kruger effect among participants in this group indicate that over and over again, regardless of the topic, participants who were 10% successful believed that they were in the 70% region and felt like experts.

And what about the second group?

Analyzing the situation from all sides, people of the second group think theoretically, linking all events and phenomena into a single system. They often go to the other extreme: thinking that "knowledge is power", they may unsuccessfully try to solve some difficult problem and feel disappointed in themselves and their capabilities because the solution has not been found.

Why do ignoramuses become leaders while intellectuals continue to doubt themselves?

Profane are very confident in themselves, do not realize their incompetence and overestimate themselves, not recognizing the merits of others. The smart ones understand that the larger the “area” of our knowledge, the longer the “circumference” with which we come into contact with what is unknown to us. Thus, understanding the globality of human knowledge, often an intelligent person perceives himself as an insignificant grain of sand in the desert of the Universe, experiencing dissatisfaction and self-doubt.

To summarize, we can say that smart people evaluate what they know, and ignoramuses - what they have no idea about, and the problem is also to understand: who you really are - a self-confident layman or a doubting intellectual.