One day in 1995, a man robbed two Pittsburgh
banks in broad daylight. He didn’t wear a mask or any sort of disguise. And he smiled at surveillance cameras before
walking out of each bank. Of course the police found the robber and
later than night arrested him. Interestingly enough, when the robber was handcuffed, he
was puzzled and he mumbled "but I wore the juice". Apparently, this bank robber thought
that smearing lemon juice on his face, would render him invisible to bank's security cameras. And he didn't just think that, he was pretty
confident about it. His rationale was that since the chemical properties of lemon juice
are used in invisible ink, it should render him invisible to the bank security cameras. This
is obviously a completely dumb way of thinking. But what's interesting is that, even after the
police showed him the footage of his robbery, he was genuinely surprised that it didn't
work and he thought the footage was fake. The police concluded that this man was not crazy
or on drugs, just incredibly misinformed and mistaken. The funny robbery led two social
psychologists, Dunning and Kruger, to study this phenomenon more deeply. Specifically what interested them the most,
was the confidence exerted by this robber, that made him believe he’d be able to obstruct
the security cameras with just lemon juice. To investigate this in the lab, they examined
a group of undergraduate students in several categories: their grammatical writing, logical
reasoning and a sense of humor. After knowing the test scores, they asked
each student to estimate his or her overall score, as well as their relative rank compared
to other students. This is when Dunning and Kruger found something fascinating. They found
that the students who scored the lowest in these cognitive tasks, always overestimated
how well they did. And not just by a little, but by a lot. They thought they had scored above average,
while their score was one the lowest. So not only were those students incompetent or less
skilled in those areas, but they obviously didn't even know just how bad they were at
them. Students who scored the highest, had more accurate perceptions of their abilities,
but they made a different mistake. Paradoxically the highest scoring students
underestimated their performance. They knew they were better than average at
the test, but because it was easy for them, they assumed it was easy for everyone. They didn't know that their ability was at
the top percentile. Today this phenomenon is known as the Dunning-Kruger Effect. Essentially,
low ability people do not possess the skills needed to recognize their own incompetence
or lack of knowledge. Their poor self-awareness leads them to overestimate
their own capabilities. You can clearly see what I mean in this graph here.Having barely
any skill or knowledge, leads to massive confidence. However when you become more knowledgeable
about a certain topic, that confidence falls. Only when you start to reach above average
skill, is when the your confidence about a certain topic starts to pick up again. Contrary
to popular belief, this is not just limited to cognitive tasks. It doesn't seem to matter what specific skill
we pick, the less a person knows about any given activity, the more likely they are to
overestimate their skill or knowledge. The Dunning-Kruger effect can be observed during
talent shows like American Idol. The auditions are usually filled with a variety
of good and bad singers. The ones who are bad at it, almost never realize
how bad they really are. That's why they're genuinely disappointed
when they get rejected. The truth it, we're not very good at evaluating ourselves accurately. In fact, the majority of people believe, that
they are better than average. 88% of people think that they're better drivers
than the majority, and even elderly people rank themselves among the best drivers. A more
interesting example is that 94% of professors assume that they are better in comparison
to their colleagues. We judge ourselves as better than others, to a degree that violates
the laws of math. But why? Why does being less skilled make you more
confident in your abilities?I'm going to help you visualize how this happens. This is Mike. He's an amateur photographer. And this box represents how much he knows
about photography. And this is how big he thinks the field is and how much there is to know
about it. With this reasoning, he's easily at the top
percentile of all photographers. But let's say he meets a professional photographer,
someone who has been doing it for 7 years, but he still has a lot to learn. This photographer knows this much about photography. But he also knows that the field is much larger,
and there's this much to know about it. Because this photographer is more knowledgeable about
the subject he knows that this gray area exists. However, Mike does not.Now you can see why
Mike is so confident in his ability. He has no idea, just how much he doesn't know. Because he only has a little knowledge of
the field, he doesn't know that it's way more extensive than that. And because he doesn't know, what he doesn't
know, he thinks he knows 90% about photography. Meanwhile, experts tend to be aware of just how knowledgeable
they are. But they often make a different mistake: they
assume that everyone else is knowledgeable as well, mostly because others exert so much
confidence. In this instance, the photographer is aware he only knows about 70%. But if he met someone like Mike, he would
underestimate himself. 90% is better than 70% after all.We are all susceptible to the Dunning-Kruger
effect. But how can we prevent ourselves from falling
prey to it? Well the answer is, you should strive to educate
yourself as much as possible. You're not expected to know everything after
all. Thinking you're always right is a clear sign of foolishness.It seems that the more
knowledge people have, the more they realize how little they know in reality. In other words, the more people know about
a certain issue, the more they realize how complicated, unexplored and extensive it is,
and how many things they do not understand or know yet. It’s a beautiful paradox in which the more
we study something, the less we know about it. On the other hand, people who dabble on the
surface of anything they pursue, will never know how much they still have to learn. In the Dunning-Kruger experiment, unskilled
or incompetent students improved their ability to correctly estimate the test results after
receiving minimal tutoring on the skills they lacked. It’s helpful to have someone who is ahead
of you show you what you have yet to learn. So next time you feel confident that you know
a lot about something, take a closer look at the topic as it could be that you are a
victim of the Dunning-Kruger effect. You just might not know what you don't know. Thanks for watching. If you enjoyed the video, hit the like button. And if you're not subscribed, make sure to
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