I read the actual study, and I think I understand it. It’s not about superiority, or criteria. It describes how that person views their level of expertise. So, in the first example, if there was a level of expertise in reality, the 7-word guy would have said “There have been studies …” or “I heard a woman speak about it a month ago …” or something. The fact that he “knew” this to be true is a reflection of his own level of belief in himself, and seems to me to be innacurate, because as a copywriter, his statement seems to fly in the face of my experience (not an expert, but hope to be someday).

In the second case, sticker man just has a personal preference. If I heard something like “It’s obvious that people hate stickers, they are much less effective because they are really clumsy,” I would attribute that to the DK effect. That guy is just an ahole client. If, after hearing the expert opinion, he persisted that he was right, that’s more DK to me.

As far as the “two experts”, not sure why the writer seems so angry, but I would think that you would listen to both experts and base your decision on which one makes more sense in the specific case you are pondering.

To reiterate, this has nothing to do with “feeling superior.” It’s about perception of one’s level of expertise.

Here’s a novel idea: read the study before you make up your mind. Becasue it’s pretty short, easy to read, and very clear.

In my opinion.

Even in the first case, I am not sure that simply being firm in your opinion demonstrates D-K effect. It may well have been the opposite– he may have been feeling that, as the boss, he is supposed to know a lot about the subject, but he doesn’t. All the same, his opinion may come from someone he respects– perhaps a professor in college was insistent that 7 words is the maximum number. When challenged, you assume he feels superior to you and therefore won’t listen to your opinion, but isn’t it quite possible that he’s thinking “darn it, I don’t remember why I was taught to do it this way, and I really wish I did… but all the same, I trust my professor over this new guy. I’m not going to let him force his opinion on me simply because he spews some jargon/math at me.”

Maybe I only think that because of my own experiences–I have this feeling a lot, and it’s a very sinking feeling. Someone I don’t know very well, whose opinion I have not yet come to trust, is telling me that something I learned elsewhere is wrong. Of course, I take such challenges seriously, but there are some circumstances where I forget the explanation, but I remember where I learned the info, and I feel that just because I’m not smart enough to defend the information I have doesn’t mean that this guy is right… maybe if my professor or source of information were here, they could defend their own point.

Most of what I learn, I have to accept with a great deal of faith. I’m training to be a veterinarian, and while sure, I can superficially understand some chemical process (this enzyme regulates that enzyme which carries out this procedure), it doesn’t mean I can really say (beyond what I’ve experienced or memorized) whether that would hold true in specific cases or circumstances. It would be foolish for me to assume that my grasp on the concepts is so strong that just by reasoning through it, I can determine what would happen in a novel situation (although it may be my best guess.)

It’s lucky for me that I don’t have to be a boss yet, because I don’t have to *tell* people that I’m not accepting their opinion. When a breeder or classmate tells me something that goes against what a professor says, and supports it with a good argument, I make a note to look in to it later, but for the time being I almost always stick with what I know, assuming I trusted the source at least as much as I trust my classmate.

I consent with the above comment. I think Dr. Dunning and Dr. Kruger just invented another word in the dictonary of people who like to call names on the ability of others, but ofcourse without checking on themselves first. I have an impression that this phrase “Dunning-Kruger effect” should be nominated as the best ironical term of the milinium.

Yes, I think this is right. I didn’t see that kind of exchange happening in the first example in your blog. If you said to the interviewer, “Actually, extensive and credible statistical studies show that there is no ‘magic number’ for determining the most effective headline,” and he simply responded by repeating himself, then his response seems to indicate the D-K effect. But merely asserting a confident conclusion doesn’t mean you lack reasons, and my reading of the first interaction in your blog doesn’t indicate that a substantive conversation took place. But then again, I may be wrong; your description may have left this information out.

More generally, I’m skeptical that the D-K effect should be used as a means of reaffirming one’s own superiority in the world. The ironies of the D-K effect are many, but among them is that the less skilled you are, the more likely you are to think that others are inferior. I worry that the increasing popularity of the D-K effect will actually do much to reaffirm the confidence of unskilled people in their own illusory greatness.

What’s particularly tricky about the DK effect is that those suffering from it are most likely to attribute it to others. Remember, one of D&K’s findings in their initial study was that highly competent people tend to assume others are equally competent, while the incompetent tend to assume others are inferior. So if you go around constantly invoking the DK effect w/r/t others’ behavior, you just might be exhibiting it yourself.