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Doesn't seem to be any discussion of Nuhfer's findings, which showed that you could recreate the effect with just random data. The bias comes from the process o

Doesn't seem to be any discussion of Nuhfer's findings, which showed that you could recreate the effect with just random data. The bias comes from the process of manipulating normalized data: https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/numeracy/vol10/iss1/art4/ https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/numeracy/vol10/iss1/art4/

antman 5y ago
That implies that Dunning and Kruger percieved their work as better than it was.
- titzer 5y ago
  ...due directly to a lack of understanding of statistics. But that just proves it. It's a Catch-22 !?
luu 5y ago
> Doesn't seem to be any discussion of Nuhfer's findings . . . That's an interesting result, but I think it would be pretty surprising if your link was discussed since your link is from 2017 and the post is from 2010 and doesn't appear to have a recent update.
- bitshiftfaced 5y ago
  That explains it.
jvanderbot 5y ago
This sounds like a confirmation. "Our results further confirm that experts are more proficient in self-assessing their abilities than novices and that women, in general, self-assess more accurately than men. The validity of interpretations of data depends strongly upon how carefully the researchers consider the numeracy that underlies graphical presentations and conclusions. Our results indicate that carefully measured self-assessments provide valid, measurable and valuable information about proficiency"
- bitshiftfaced 5y ago
  Confirmation would be if they found that those who were less competent tended to overestimate their abilities when compared to those who were more competent. They found that this was not true. Instead, they found that people tend to overestimate their abilities with the same likelihood as when underestimating.
- porb121 5y ago
  No, it's not a confirmation. Experts have a tighter distribution of self-assessment - when they miss, they miss by less. However, non-experts and experts alike overrate and underrate their competency with about equal frequency. Because of ceiling and floor effects (it's hard to massively underrate yourself when you're already in the bottom decile of actual competency, and vice versa), non-experts have a mean self-assessment higher than their actual competency, but that doesn't mean that non-experts as a group tend to overrate themselves.
  - jstanley 5y ago
    > non-experts have a mean self-assessment higher than their actual competency, but that doesn't mean that non-experts as a group tend to overrate themselves. Doesn't it mean exactly that? It doesn't matter if it's caused by ceiling and floor effects, the end result is that the less competent tend to overrate themselves.
smallnamespace 5y ago
That's not quite true, the article's section on regression to the mean[1] largely covers the same territory as Nuhfer's article (although Nuhfer never uses that precise phrase). Random noise is a primary reason that we see regression to the mean in most contexts (the exception being actual deterministic factors, such as seasonality, the restoring force of a spring, etc.) The chain of reasoning goes like: Random noise (Nuhfer) -> can cause regression to mean (covered in the article) -> calls into question the Dunning-Kruger effect [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regression_toward_the_mean#Conceptual_background https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regression_toward_the_mean#Con...
dysrend 5y ago
It makes it the Dunning-Kruger paradox, which would force a lot of people to eat a lot of crow.
tjs8rj 5y ago
The abstract mentions women self-assess more accurately than men. As a man and thinking about my own mindset with self assessment, I wonder if the definition of “self-assessment” itself might differ between men and women on average. For myself, if you ask me to do a task in a discipline I know little about, I might assess myself as being capable of doing so even without the prior experience, because I figure “I can figure it out reasonably well on the fly”. This is a convoluted way of saying men may just be overconfident, but importantly not because we assume we k ow everything, but because we are more confident we can learn it even if we don’t know it. Maybe me writing all this while self-assessing myself is yet more male self-assessment hubris...
- colineartheta 5y ago
  No offense, but this mostly just reads as very sexist. >...we are more confident we can learn it even if we don’t know it. I’m confident women can learn things they aren’t familiar with, and as quickly as a man can. Your whole comment reeks of bias, actually.
  - kortilla 5y ago
    Read it again. The comment you are mindlessly bashing is talking about men having more confidence in the ability to learn on the fly, not having more ability to learn on the fly.
    - colineartheta 5y ago
      I’m not mindlessly bashing anything, I’m speaking up about mindless sexism. You should read it again from the perspective that men and and women are equal, and that “men having more confidence” is a damaging psychology to have (sexist).
      - cutemonster 5y ago
        > from the perspective that men and and women are equal Do you mean "identical"? I wonder what makes you think that men and women would function precisely the same? (Apart from physical things) People can be different, but still be equal (as in equality)
T-A 5y ago
Presumably because the post is from 2010, and Nuhfer's article is from 2017.

antman 5y ago

That implies that Dunning and Kruger percieved their work as better than it was.

titzer 5y ago
...due directly to a lack of understanding of statistics. But that just proves it. It's a Catch-22 !?

luu 5y ago

> Doesn't seem to be any discussion of Nuhfer's findings . . . That's an interesting result, but I think it would be pretty surprising if your link was discussed since your link is from 2017 and the post is from 2010 and doesn't appear to have a recent update.

bitshiftfaced 5y ago
That explains it.

jvanderbot 5y ago

This sounds like a confirmation. "Our results further confirm that experts are more proficient in self-assessing their abilities than novices and that women, in general, self-assess more accurately than men. The validity of interpretations of data depends strongly upon how carefully the researchers consider the numeracy that underlies graphical presentations and conclusions. Our results indicate that carefully measured self-assessments provide valid, measurable and valuable information about proficiency"

bitshiftfaced 5y ago
Confirmation would be if they found that those who were less competent tended to overestimate their abilities when compared to those who were more competent. They found that this was not true. Instead, they found that people tend to overestimate their abilities with the same likelihood as when underestimating.
porb121 5y ago
No, it's not a confirmation. Experts have a tighter distribution of self-assessment - when they miss, they miss by less. However, non-experts and experts alike overrate and underrate their competency with about equal frequency. Because of ceiling and floor effects (it's hard to massively underrate yourself when you're already in the bottom decile of actual competency, and vice versa), non-experts have a mean self-assessment higher than their actual competency, but that doesn't mean that non-experts as a group tend to overrate themselves.
- jstanley 5y ago
  > non-experts have a mean self-assessment higher than their actual competency, but that doesn't mean that non-experts as a group tend to overrate themselves. Doesn't it mean exactly that? It doesn't matter if it's caused by ceiling and floor effects, the end result is that the less competent tend to overrate themselves.

smallnamespace 5y ago

That's not quite true, the article's section on regression to the mean[1] largely covers the same territory as Nuhfer's article (although Nuhfer never uses that precise phrase). Random noise is a primary reason that we see regression to the mean in most contexts (the exception being actual deterministic factors, such as seasonality, the restoring force of a spring, etc.) The chain of reasoning goes like: Random noise (Nuhfer) -> can cause regression to mean (covered in the article) -> calls into question the Dunning-Kruger effect [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regression_toward_the_mean#Conceptual_background https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regression_toward_the_mean#Con...

dysrend 5y ago

It makes it the Dunning-Kruger paradox, which would force a lot of people to eat a lot of crow.

tjs8rj 5y ago

The abstract mentions women self-assess more accurately than men. As a man and thinking about my own mindset with self assessment, I wonder if the definition of “self-assessment” itself might differ between men and women on average. For myself, if you ask me to do a task in a discipline I know little about, I might assess myself as being capable of doing so even without the prior experience, because I figure “I can figure it out reasonably well on the fly”. This is a convoluted way of saying men may just be overconfident, but importantly not because we assume we k ow everything, but because we are more confident we can learn it even if we don’t know it. Maybe me writing all this while self-assessing myself is yet more male self-assessment hubris...

colineartheta 5y ago
No offense, but this mostly just reads as very sexist. >...we are more confident we can learn it even if we don’t know it. I’m confident women can learn things they aren’t familiar with, and as quickly as a man can. Your whole comment reeks of bias, actually.
- kortilla 5y ago
  Read it again. The comment you are mindlessly bashing is talking about men having more confidence in the ability to learn on the fly, not having more ability to learn on the fly.
  - colineartheta 5y ago
    I’m not mindlessly bashing anything, I’m speaking up about mindless sexism. You should read it again from the perspective that men and and women are equal, and that “men having more confidence” is a damaging psychology to have (sexist).
    - cutemonster 5y ago
      > from the perspective that men and and women are equal Do you mean "identical"? I wonder what makes you think that men and women would function precisely the same? (Apart from physical things) People can be different, but still be equal (as in equality)

T-A 5y ago

Presumably because the post is from 2010, and Nuhfer's article is from 2017.