This is similar to the Dunning-Kruger effect. From Wikipedia[1], "The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which unskilled people make poor decisions an

This is similar to the Dunning-Kruger effect. From Wikipedia[1], "The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which unskilled people make poor decisions and reach erroneous conclusions, but their incompetence denies them the metacognitive ability to appreciate their mistakes." To put it plainly, incompetent people are more confident in their poor abilities than competent people are in theirs well-developed skills. Moreover, and incompetent people are unable to accurately measure the extent of their incompetence. Instead of making us all feel confident and superior to those who are not as capable as we are, I think the better takeaway is that we are all subject to the effect. Because of this, we should be on guard for the situations where we are unjustifiably certain of our conclusions. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect