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Return to Journal Homepage Journal of Personality and Social Psychology Selected Article 1999 by the American Psychological Association For personal use only--not for distribution December 1999 Vol. The authors suggest that this overestima tion occurs, in part, because people who are unskilled in these domains suffer a dual burden: Not only do these people reach erroneous conclus ions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it. Across 4 studies, the authors found that participants scoring in the bottom quartile on tests of humo r, grammar, and logic grossly overestimated their test performance and ability. Although their test scores put them in the 12th percentile, th ey estimated themselves to be in the 62nd. Several analyses linked this miscalibration to deficits in metacognitive skill, or the capacity to distinguish accuracy from error. Paradoxically, improving the skills of participants, and thus increasing their metacognitive competence, help ed them recognize the limitations of their abilities. We thank Betsy Ostrov, Mark Stalnaker, and Boris Veysman for their assist ance in data collection. We also thank Andrew Hayes, Chip Heath, Rich Go nzalez, Ken Savitsky, and David Sherman for their valuable comments on a n earlier version of this article, and Dov Cohen for alerting us to the quote we used to begin this article. Portions of this research were pres ented at the annual meeting of the Eastern Psychological Association, Bo ston, March 1998. This research was supported financially by National In stitute of Mental Health Grant RO1 56072. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Justin Krug er, Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaig n, 603 East Daniel Street, Champaign, Illinois 61820, or to David Dunnin g, Department of Psychology, Uris Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853-7601. accepted June 10, 1999 It is one of the essential features of such incompetence that the person so afflicted is incapable of knowing that he is incompetent. To have s uch knowledge would already be to remedy a good portion of the offense.
Miller, 1993 , p 4) In 1995, McArthur Wheeler walked into two Pittsburgh banks and robbed the m in broad daylight, with no visible attempt at disguise. He was arreste d later that night, less than an hour after videotapes of him taken from surveillance cameras were broadcast on the 11 o'clock news. When police later showed him the surveillance tapes, Mr Wheeler stared in incredul ity.
We bring up the unfortunate affairs of Mr Wheeler to make three points. First, in many domains in life, succ ess and satisfaction depend on knowledge, wisdom, or savvy in knowing wh ich rules to follow and which strategies to pursue. This is true not onl y for committing crimes, but also for many tasks in the social and intel lectual domains, such as promoting effective leadership, raising childre n, constructing a solid logical argument, or designing a rigorous psycho logical study.
Story & Dunning, 1998 ), with varying levels of success. Some of the knowledge and theories that peop le apply to their actions are sound and meet with favorable results. Oth ers, like the lemon juice hypothesis of McArthur Wheeler, are imperfect at best and wrong-headed, incompetent, or dysfunctional at worst. Perhaps more controversial is the third point, the one that is the focus of this article. We argue that when people are incompetent in the strate gies they adopt to achieve success and satisfaction, they suffer a dual burden: Not only do they reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunat e choices, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it . Instead, like Mr Wheeler, they are left with the mistaken impression that they are doing just fine.
Charles Darwin (1871) s agely noted over a century ago, "ignorance more frequently begets confid ence than does knowledge" (p. In essence, we argue that the skills that engender competence in a partic ular domain are often the very same skills necessary to evaluate compete nce in that domainone's own or anyone else's.
These terms refer to the ability to know how well one is performing, when one is li kely to be accurate in judgment, and when one is likely to be in error. For example, consider the ability to write grammatical English. The skil ls that enable one to construct a grammatical sentence are the same skil ls necessary to recognize a grammatical sentence, and thus are the same skills necessary to determine if a grammatical mistake has been made. In short, the same knowledge that underlies the ability to produce correct judgment is also the knowledge that underlies the ability to recognize correct judgment. Imperfect Self-Assessments We focus on the metacognitive skills of the incompetent to explain, in pa rt, the fact that people seem to be so imperfect in appraising themselve s and their abilities.
Metcalfe, 1998 ), the failure to recognize that one has performed poorly will instead leave one to assume that one has performed well. As a result, the incompetent will tend to grossly overestimate th eir skills and abilities. Competence and Metacognitive Skills Several lines of research are consistent with the notion that incompetent individuals lack the metacognitive skills necessary for accurate self- assessment. Work on the nature of expertise, for instance, has revealed that novices possess poorer metacognitive skills than do experts.
These findings suggest that unaccomplished individuals do not possess the degree of metacognitive skills necessary for accurate self-assessment t hat their more accomplished counterparts possess. However, none of this research has examined whether metacognitive deficiencies translate into inflated self-assessments or whether the relatively incompetent (novices ) are systematically more miscalibrated about their ability than are the competent (experts). If one skims through the psychological literature, one will find some evi dence that the incompetent are less able than their more skilled peers t o gauge their own level of competence.
However, none of these studies has examined whether deficie nt metacognitive skills underlie these miscalibrations, nor have they ti ed these miscalibrations to the above-average effect. Predictions These shards of empirical evidence suggest that incompetent individuals h ave more difficulty recognizing their true level of ability than do more competent individuals and that a lack of metacognitive skills may under lie this deficiency. Thus, we made four specific predictions about the l inks between competence, metacognitive ability, and inflated self-assess ment. Prediction 1 Incompetent individuals, compared with their more competent peers, will dramatically overestimate their ability and performance rel ative to objective criteria. Prediction 2 Incompetent individuals will suffer from deficient metacogn itive skills, in that they will be less able than their more competent p eers to recognize competence when they see itbe it their own or anyone else's. Prediction 3 Incompetent individuals will be less able than their more c ompetent peers to gain insight into their true level of performance by m eans of social comparison information. In particular, because of their d ifficulty recognizing competence in others, incompetent individuals will be unable to use information about the choices and performances of othe rs to form more accurate impressions of their own ability. Prediction 4 The incompetent can gain insight about their shortcomings, but this comes (paradoxically) by making them more competent, thus provi ding them the metacognitive skills necessary to be able to realize that they have performed poorly. The Studies We explored these predictions in four studies. In each, we presented part icipants with tests that assessed their ability in a domain in which kno wledge, wisdom, or savvy was crucial: humor (Study 1), logical reasoning (Studies 2 and 4), and English grammar (Study 3). We then asked partici pants to assess their ability and test performance. In all studies, we p redicted that participant...
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