18 ms·

Good article. However, I disagree with his interpretation of Dunning and Kruger's figures. There is limited data in those figures of course (3 sets with 12 poi

Good article. However, I disagree with his interpretation of Dunning and Kruger's figures. There is limited data in those figures of course (3 sets with 12 points of data and 1 set with 8 points), and I don't know how big the actual sample sizes were. But in all 4 cases, it clearly and significantly shows that people with low actual ability overrate themselves and people with high actual ability underrate themselves. > The pop-sci version of Dunning-Kruger is that, the less someone knows about a subject, the more they think they know. I can only guess that he is interpreting that too literally. I always took the latter part as "the more they think they know [compared to what they actually do]". You could plot "perceived - actual" or "perceived / actual" instead of the figures in the paper to make it more obvious.

sergiosgc 12y ago
> But in all 4 cases, it clearly and significantly shows that people with low actual ability overrate themselves and people with high actual ability underrate themselves. I read the data quite differently. I read that people don't use the full scale when rating themselves. The self rating scale goes from 60 to 90. If you correct for that, people kind of seem to do a nice job in self evaluation. It can be explained, too. People have social pressure not to rate themselves near 100%, nor in the bottom half of the scale.
- maxerickson 12y ago
  Presumably the plots represent averages. This hides the actual ranges of the reported self assessments, but it is likely that there is substantial overlap between adjacent test score groups. Just curving out the scale isn't going to address that.
  - sergiosgc 12y ago
    True. Without knowing how are values distributed around the average, my observation that people do good self-assessments is poorly justified. Worse, a reduction in scale introduces worse granularity, so the end result is guaranteedly less precise. My observation is on the formality level of back of napkin calculations (i.e. it may be true, given the information provided, but is not proven true)
- deciplex 12y ago
  I read the data a little differently, too. I read it as "in two of the four cases, the cases are identical, because it's the same damn graph".
  - jwmerrill 12y ago
    It is not the same damn graph--the two "logical reasoning" graphs show two separate studies that measured same quantities. The points on these graphs are not the same, even though the axes and captions are (except that the captions mention that they are two separate studies). Edit: based on other comments, it sounds like maybe the 3rd and 4th graphs were identical, but the author has now corrected the error.

sergiosgc 12y ago

> But in all 4 cases, it clearly and significantly shows that people with low actual ability overrate themselves and people with high actual ability underrate themselves. I read the data quite differently. I read that people don't use the full scale when rating themselves. The self rating scale goes from 60 to 90. If you correct for that, people kind of seem to do a nice job in self evaluation. It can be explained, too. People have social pressure not to rate themselves near 100%, nor in the bottom half of the scale.

maxerickson 12y ago
Presumably the plots represent averages. This hides the actual ranges of the reported self assessments, but it is likely that there is substantial overlap between adjacent test score groups. Just curving out the scale isn't going to address that.
- sergiosgc 12y ago
  True. Without knowing how are values distributed around the average, my observation that people do good self-assessments is poorly justified. Worse, a reduction in scale introduces worse granularity, so the end result is guaranteedly less precise. My observation is on the formality level of back of napkin calculations (i.e. it may be true, given the information provided, but is not proven true)
deciplex 12y ago
I read the data a little differently, too. I read it as "in two of the four cases, the cases are identical, because it's the same damn graph".
- jwmerrill 12y ago
  It is not the same damn graph--the two "logical reasoning" graphs show two separate studies that measured same quantities. The points on these graphs are not the same, even though the axes and captions are (except that the captions mention that they are two separate studies). Edit: based on other comments, it sounds like maybe the 3rd and 4th graphs were identical, but the author has now corrected the error.