It is known that over time, a person develops certain patterns of behavior, responses, stereotyped actions. However, thinking may also be stereotyped. Due to the fact that our consciousness seeks to simplify its life as much as possible, it creates certain patterns for which it adjusts the surrounding reality. Often these stereotypes have nothing to do with reality, but they continue to "streamline" our lives with enviable persistence. Such stereotypical patterns of thinking are called "cognitive distortions" and greatly simplify conscious activity, quickly hanging labels on certain situations. An example of such stereotyping is the Dunning-Krueger effect, which clearly proves the truth of the statement: "Woe is from the mind!"
The more you know, the more you understand that you know nothing
Surely many highly educated people who are striving for constant self-education, caught themselves thinking that they still have a sea of the unknown, and all their skills are just a drop in the sea, and so much more needs to be learned ... And at the same time, on each to the step we meet, to put it mildly, not the most competent people who for some reason are unshakably confident in their competence and authority. Such people rarely bother with the problem of obtaining additional knowledge, but at the same time tend to show their expert opinion at any opportunity. There is a special term for describing such people in social psychology - the Dunning-Krueger effect.
Description of the phenomenon
The aforementioned people, because of their incompetence, often make mistakes (mainly in the workplace), but they never admit their guilt, or rather, they do not consider the limitation of their knowledge to be the reason for incorrect decisions. Such individuals are characterized by a reassessment of their own knowledge, skills and abilities. They are unable to admit that someone else may be more qualified, and it would be worth learning from him. They also never acknowledge their ignorance. However, the Krueger effect extends to the other pole: highly qualified specialists tend to belittle their abilities, they are less confident in themselves and painstakingly analyze each decision.
The Dunning-Krueger Effect: Causes of Distortion
Why it happens? It would seem that ignorance should not inspire confidence, but this is happening. Most likely, the point is compensation. Since mediocre intellectual abilities do not allow such people to realize a sense of self-importance, they compensate for the lack of knowledge with high conceit and confidence. Moreover, others are always visible ignorance of the described persons, but they themselves - no. They truly believe they are expert.
In fact, the Dunning-Krueger effect is a serious problem in the modern world, as carriers of this cognitive distortion are more and more often found in enterprises, which does not affect the quality of production in the best way. Moreover, not only the world of work is affected by this effect. Uneducated people express their "authoritative" opinion in many other areas: politics, social life and the like.