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Edit: Turns out that while I stand by my point about the underlying principle behind the DK effect (in my nitpick) the actual effect coined by the authors was f

Edit: Turns out that while I stand by my point about the underlying principle behind the DK effect (in my nitpick) the actual effect coined by the authors was focused on the low competence high confidence portion of the competence vs confidence relationship. (Accurately reflected in OP article) Here is the original DK article: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10626367/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10626367/ Turns out I thought that the author was DKing about DK, but actually I was DKing about them DKing about DK. Original Comment: I have high-confidence in a nitpick, and low-confidence in a reason to think this thesis is way off. The Nitpick: Dunning-Kruger effect is more about how confidence and competence evolve over time. It's how when we learn an overview about our new topic our confidence (in understanding) greatly exceeds our competence, then we learn how much we don't know and our confidence crashes below our actual competence, and then eventually, when we reach mastery, they become balanced. The dunning-Kruger effect is this entire process, not only the first part, which is colloquially called "Peak Mt Stupid" after the shape of the confidence vs competence graph over time. The Big Doubt: I can't help but wonder if fools asking AI questions and getting incorrect answers and thinking they are correct is some other thing all together. At best maybe tangentially related to DK.

jamauro 1y ago
Gell-Mann amnesia
- FloorEgg 1y ago
  Bingo
tovej 1y ago
Yes and no. Dunning-Kruger also explains this evolution of skill estimation, but the original paper frames the effect specifically as an overestimation of skill in the lowest-performing quantile. This is clearly even cited in the article.
- FloorEgg 1y ago
  Okay I will agree with the "Yes and No". I initially clicked the source in the article, which is a broken link to wikipedia and rolled my eyes at it. After reading your comment I navigated to it directly and found the first two sentences: The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias that describes the systematic tendency of people with low ability in a specific area to give overly positive assessments of this ability. The term may also describe the tendency of high performers to underestimate their skills. Unsatisfied that this was the authority, I dug up the original paper here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10626367/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10626367/ And sure enough, the emphasis in the abstract is exactly as you say. So while I stand by that the principle behind the "effect" is how confidence and competence evolve over time as someone discovers and masters a domain, I will concede that the original authors, and most people, assign the name for it to primarily the first phase. Here I was thinking the OP Author was DKing about DK, but in reality I was DKing about them DKing about DK.
  - pdonis 1y ago
    > the real "effect" is how confidence and competence evolve over time What research is this based on?
    - FloorEgg 1y ago
      Yeah that was poorly worded. I edited it even before I read your comment. However the over-time aspect is kind of self-evident. No one is born a master of any skill or subject. So while the original research was based on a snapshot of many people along a developmental journey, just because the data collection wasn't done over time doesn't mean that the principle behind the effect isn't time/effort based. The graph is really competence vs confidence, but competence can only increase over time. If this isn't self-evident enough, there is lots of research on how mastery is gained. I don't have time to throw a bunch of it at you, but I suspect you won't need me to in order to see my point.
      - pdonis 1y ago
pdonis 1y ago
> Dunning-Kruger effect is more about how confidence and competence evolve over time. I don't think there is anything about this in the actual research underlying the Dunning-Kruger effect. They didn't study people over time as they learned about new subjects. They studied people at one time, different people with differing levels of competence at that time.
- janalsncm 1y ago
  You could chart the same curve by measuring the confidence of people at different competence levels.
  - pdonis 1y ago
    "Could" based on what research?
- FloorEgg 1y ago
  It's the relationship of confidence and competence. Competence is gained over time. The "over time" is almost self-evident since no one is born a master of a skill or subject. And if it's not self-evident enough for you, there is lots of research into what it takes to develop competency and mastery in any subject. So while the original paper was a snapshot taken at one point in time, it was a snapshot of many people at different stages of a learning journey... And journeys take place over time.
  - pdonis 1y ago
    I responded to this in another post in response to you upthread. The short version is that I don't agree with you about what is and is not "self-evident" here, nor will I accept your unsupported word that whatever research does exist supports your claims.
    - FloorEgg 1y ago
      Interesting. So just to be clear... You are claiming that it is not self-evident that people learn things over time? That it's not self-evident that experts start out as beginners?
pdonis 1y ago
> when we learn an overview about our new topic our confidence (in understanding) greatly exceeds our competence, then we learn how much we don't know and our confidence crashes below our actual competence, and then eventually, when we reach mastery, they become balanced. As a description of what Dunning and Kruger's actual research showed on the relationship between confidence and competence (which, as I've pointed out in another post in this thread, was not based on studying people over time, but on studying people with differing levels of competence at the same time), this is wrong for two out of the three skill levels. What D-K found was that people with low competence overestimate their skill, people with high competence underestimate their skill, and people with middle competence estimate their skill more or less accurately. As a description of what actually learning a new subject is like, I also don't think you're correct--certainly what you describe does not at all match my experience, either when personally learning new subjects or when watching others do so. My experience regarding actually learning a new subject is that people with low competence (just starting out) generally don't think they have much skill (because they know they're just starting out), while people with middling competence might overestimate their skill (because they think they've learned enough, but they actually haven't).
- FloorEgg 1y ago
  Out of curiosity, if you google "Dunning Kruger Effect" and then look at the images, and see all those charts of confidence vs competence, do you disagree with them? And as I responded to your other comment, just because the study took measurements of many people at one point in time didn't mean they weren't studying an over-time phenomenon. No one starts out as an expert.
  - pdonis 1y ago
    > if you google "Dunning Kruger Effect" and then look at the images Then I would be doing a very poor job of actually researching the topic. If you are aware of any actual research papers that describe actually studying how the same people's competence vs. confidence evolves over time, by all means point me to them. > just because the study took measurements of many people at one point in time didn't mean they weren't studying an over-time phenomenon. Um, yes, it does. It's possible that the things the study saw were effects of an over-time phenomenon, but the study did not study that, and its results are not evidence either for or against any such hypothesis.

jamauro 1y ago

Gell-Mann amnesia

FloorEgg 1y ago
Bingo

tovej 1y ago

Yes and no. Dunning-Kruger also explains this evolution of skill estimation, but the original paper frames the effect specifically as an overestimation of skill in the lowest-performing quantile. This is clearly even cited in the article.

FloorEgg 1y ago
Okay I will agree with the "Yes and No". I initially clicked the source in the article, which is a broken link to wikipedia and rolled my eyes at it. After reading your comment I navigated to it directly and found the first two sentences: The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias that describes the systematic tendency of people with low ability in a specific area to give overly positive assessments of this ability. The term may also describe the tendency of high performers to underestimate their skills. Unsatisfied that this was the authority, I dug up the original paper here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10626367/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10626367/ And sure enough, the emphasis in the abstract is exactly as you say. So while I stand by that the principle behind the "effect" is how confidence and competence evolve over time as someone discovers and masters a domain, I will concede that the original authors, and most people, assign the name for it to primarily the first phase. Here I was thinking the OP Author was DKing about DK, but in reality I was DKing about them DKing about DK.
- pdonis 1y ago
  > the real "effect" is how confidence and competence evolve over time What research is this based on?
  - FloorEgg 1y ago
    Yeah that was poorly worded. I edited it even before I read your comment. However the over-time aspect is kind of self-evident. No one is born a master of any skill or subject. So while the original research was based on a snapshot of many people along a developmental journey, just because the data collection wasn't done over time doesn't mean that the principle behind the effect isn't time/effort based. The graph is really competence vs confidence, but competence can only increase over time. If this isn't self-evident enough, there is lots of research on how mastery is gained. I don't have time to throw a bunch of it at you, but I suspect you won't need me to in order to see my point.
    - pdonis 1y ago

pdonis 1y ago

> Dunning-Kruger effect is more about how confidence and competence evolve over time. I don't think there is anything about this in the actual research underlying the Dunning-Kruger effect. They didn't study people over time as they learned about new subjects. They studied people at one time, different people with differing levels of competence at that time.

janalsncm 1y ago
You could chart the same curve by measuring the confidence of people at different competence levels.
- pdonis 1y ago
  "Could" based on what research?
FloorEgg 1y ago
It's the relationship of confidence and competence. Competence is gained over time. The "over time" is almost self-evident since no one is born a master of a skill or subject. And if it's not self-evident enough for you, there is lots of research into what it takes to develop competency and mastery in any subject. So while the original paper was a snapshot taken at one point in time, it was a snapshot of many people at different stages of a learning journey... And journeys take place over time.
- pdonis 1y ago
  I responded to this in another post in response to you upthread. The short version is that I don't agree with you about what is and is not "self-evident" here, nor will I accept your unsupported word that whatever research does exist supports your claims.
  - FloorEgg 1y ago
    Interesting. So just to be clear... You are claiming that it is not self-evident that people learn things over time? That it's not self-evident that experts start out as beginners?

pdonis 1y ago

> when we learn an overview about our new topic our confidence (in understanding) greatly exceeds our competence, then we learn how much we don't know and our confidence crashes below our actual competence, and then eventually, when we reach mastery, they become balanced. As a description of what Dunning and Kruger's actual research showed on the relationship between confidence and competence (which, as I've pointed out in another post in this thread, was not based on studying people over time, but on studying people with differing levels of competence at the same time), this is wrong for two out of the three skill levels. What D-K found was that people with low competence overestimate their skill, people with high competence underestimate their skill, and people with middle competence estimate their skill more or less accurately. As a description of what actually learning a new subject is like, I also don't think you're correct--certainly what you describe does not at all match my experience, either when personally learning new subjects or when watching others do so. My experience regarding actually learning a new subject is that people with low competence (just starting out) generally don't think they have much skill (because they know they're just starting out), while people with middling competence might overestimate their skill (because they think they've learned enough, but they actually haven't).

FloorEgg 1y ago
Out of curiosity, if you google "Dunning Kruger Effect" and then look at the images, and see all those charts of confidence vs competence, do you disagree with them? And as I responded to your other comment, just because the study took measurements of many people at one point in time didn't mean they weren't studying an over-time phenomenon. No one starts out as an expert.
- pdonis 1y ago
  > if you google "Dunning Kruger Effect" and then look at the images Then I would be doing a very poor job of actually researching the topic. If you are aware of any actual research papers that describe actually studying how the same people's competence vs. confidence evolves over time, by all means point me to them. > just because the study took measurements of many people at one point in time didn't mean they weren't studying an over-time phenomenon. Um, yes, it does. It's possible that the things the study saw were effects of an over-time phenomenon, but the study did not study that, and its results are not evidence either for or against any such hypothesis.