Beginner's hubris and Imposter syndrome
The Dunning–Kruger effect and its impact on self-confidence
Hello friends, I hope you’re having a great week!
This week’s post was inspired by a LinkedIn post I read but that I can’t find. The post was an interesting reflection on a cognitive bias known as the Dunning-Kruger effect. This bias is basically the result of a study that shows how unexperienced people tend to over-estimate their knowledge of a certain topic (what I called “Beginner’s hubris” in the post title) while experts tend to over-estimate the complexity of the topic and therefore fall in the trap of the Imposter syndrome. At first read this result was quite intuitive, we all see this happening very often, but the more I thought about it the more I found interesting considerations that I thought useful sharing. But before we jump straight into the topic lets’ do a quick trivia:
WHAT IS THE DUNNING-KRUGER EFFECT?
Let’s start by defining what this cognitive bias is: “The Dunning–Kruger effect is usually measured by comparing self-assessment with a measure of objective performance. For example, the participants in a study may be asked to complete a quiz and then estimate how well they performed. This subjective assessment is then compared with how well they actually performed. This can happen in either relative or absolute terms, i.e., in comparison with one's peer group as the percentage of peers outperformed or in comparison with objective standards as the number of questions answered correctly. The Dunning–Kruger effect appears in both cases, but is more pronounced in relative terms; the bottom quartile of performers tend to see themselves as being part of the top two quartiles”.
In simple words this means that beginners tend to under-estimate the complexity of a topic, and therefore over-estimate their skills, whereas experts fall trap of the opposite trend:
This bias is nothing new, or a particularly innovative finding. When searching about it I stumbled into this Charles Darwin quote that really sums it all: “Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge”. The reason why I believe this is an interesting topic is that I am positive most of us have seen this bias in several parts of our lives. A friend rightfully pointed out that this is for example often what happens when we learn a new language: at the beginning you feel like “you got it” and feel confident talking, but the more you study the language and improve the more you realize how little you know and become afraid of speaking as you grow self-awareness. Or something that happened to many of us in school, the more prepared I was for an exam the more I had doubts on how I had done…
While searching on the scientific side of this topic I also found some interesting data on the social aspects of this topic: “In one study, Dunning and Ehrlinger found that women performed equally to men on a science quiz, and yet women underestimated their performance because they believed they had less scientific reasoning ability than men. The researchers also found that these women were more likely to refuse to enter a science competition due to this belief”.
BEGINNERS THINKING THEY’RE PRO
As I said at the beginning the biggest evidence of this bias is on the over-confidence of beginners. This is basically due to the fact that poor performers (note: not only beginners!) have not yet acquired the ability to distinguish between good and bad performances. They tend to overrate themselves because they do not see the qualitative difference between their performances and the performances of others.
When thinking about this one could say “ok, but why is that a problem?”. I have some personal opinions on the social impact of this bias at the bottom of the post, but the biggest problem at a personal level is that this lack of awareness does not allow us to recognize the knowledge gap we have, and therefore seek more knowledge. There’s therefore a negative spiral that could grow from this bias, and that is ok when speaking a language for instance but could be very dangerous in many fields, including a professional environment.
One person could believe they’re a pro at skiing, over-estimate their skills, and take on slopes that are way above their skills… this could be dangerous! Or similarly a person could believe to be an expert in some professional discussion, and ultimately look like a fool in debates with real experts.
IMPOSTOR SYNDROME / OVERCOMPLICATION
While I found a lot about the first part of the problem, that I commented above, I admit that I found very little on the second part of the issue: people suffering imposter syndrome and over complicating problems as they become more knowledgeable about a topic. I actually feel this is a very big deal, with potentially personal, professional and social implications. Over complication, under-confidence and the feeling that the issue is “too hard for me to solve” could drive people away from action, at times leaving the field for less prepared yet more confident people… Socrates famously said “Scio me non scire - I know that I don’t know”: experts have always become aware of their ignorance the more they spend time acquiring knowledge. It’s human nature.
I always have controversial feelings on imposter syndrome, because (similarly to what I wrote about multipotentialites in this post) I always feel like it’s sometimes used as “false modesty”. When declaring I feel like I have imposter syndrome I am implicitly calling for a compliment or reassurance from my interlocutor. It’s very hard for someone to tell you “well yes, you actually suck you’re right”. Especially in a professional world the most common thing people will tell you when you say you have imposter syndrome is “what are you talking about? You’re great!” even when that’s not true.
The ability to simplify problems and focus on action is a very important skill. Letting perfectionism stop action could actually be very detrimental. Often “done is better than perfect” is a perfectly sensible approach!
The good thing is that I found a survey to discover whether you have imposter syndrome! :)
SOCIETY IMPLICATIONS OF THIS BIAS
Before I provide some ideas on how to deal with this bias and what to do to overcome it, I wanted to spend a little time explaining why I consider this to be a very big deal especially in the larger society implications. If you reflect on it I believe we have all seen a massive demonstration of this bias during the Covid pandemic…
Personally I have always hated the “over-simplification” of some politicians. I have always looked very carefully at people that used a lot of “at the end of the day, this is an easy problem, you just have to do…”. This sentence is almost always a trigger for me, when talking about football (which is everything but “simple”!) or any political topic. Very few things are really simple, usually people just underestimate complexity or their lack of understanding. I have, on the other hand, been much more attracted by nuanced explanations, and triggered positively by sentences like “this is very complicated, and if you want to know more you should read xxxx. However trying to simplify it for the sake of this discussion…”.
And frankly I have seen the first behavior (i.e. over-simplification and easy solutions) proliferate in politics. I think this is a huge deal because as a society, we risk missing learning from the best of the best, because their confidence keeps them behind closed doors. At center stage, all too often, can be people of below-average capabilities.
“Unfortunately, those who are the most ignorant—in the bottom 25% of any skill—also overestimate themselves the most. In the context of our democracy, this means our most uninformed citizens are also our most confident ones. Not only are these ignorant people extremely resistant to being taught—since they believe they know the most—they are also guilty of sharing the most information (read: misinformation).”
At its core, the Dunning-Kruger effect preys on just that: not a lack of information, but rather an abundance of misinformation. We know when we know nothing, but it is information that is wrong that causes us to think we know everything, and absentmindedly press “share” on social networks.
The paragraph below sums up very well my thoughts:
“Our society’s disease of self-awareness causes ignorant and misinformed people to have the confidence to claim the microphone, while experts and well-informed folks are behind the stage, rolling up the curtains. This phenomenon spreads misinformation and ill-informed views throughout our social worlds, causing us to miss real learning opportunities we could gain from one another”.
HOW TO DEAL WITH THIS?
So, provided we recognize this bias is an issue, what can we do to overcome it? I would argue that the first thing to do, which I say with a lot of cautiousness recognizing it has a lot of lateral implications, is to compare vs others. “When it comes to the Dunning-Kruger effect, comparing yourself to others may not be the worst thing you could do—just don’t tell your therapist we said so”. We live in a culture that points us away from comparison, and very often rightfully so. Slogans like “There’s no right and wrong” or many discussions on freedom of speech in my opinion distract us from real skills comparison. Going back to the skiing example I made earlier, simply looking at other people on the slopes could allow you to see your flaws, stop you from rushing into that off-track black slope and more importantly look for improvement.
Additionally I believe that actively searching for feedback, and trying for it to be as spontaneous as possible, is very important. What I mean with “spontaneous” is to embrace an attitude of openness toward feedback, allowing people to feel comfortable giving you their opinions spontaneously, rather than asking proactively “how am I doing on this?” which in some cases could not allow the provider to give you a really transparent opinion. At the end of the day “feedback is a gift”!
I also noted from some readings some additional quick considerations:
Take time to reflect. Some people feel more confident when they make decisions quickly, but snap decisions can lead to errors of judgment. Reflecting on where we went wrong last time can also help us move forward.
See learning as a way forward. If you are afraid to ask questions in case it reveals inadequacies, remember that no one knows everything. Asking the question or asking for help can enable you to move forward.
Challenge your own beliefs. Are there things about yourself or the world that you have always believed and never questioned? As the world changes, revisiting our beliefs can help us keep up with those changes.
Change your reasoning. Do you apply the same logic to every question or problem you encounter? Trying new approaches can help you break out of unhelpful patterns.
Closing I would argue that the chart below gives a more constructive and positive view of this effect… the bias is surely there, but knowing it and recognizing it is already a first step!
What’s your view? Have you ever experienced this? What do you do to make sure you tackle this bias in your daily life?
Have a fantastic weekend,
Giovanni
WHAT I LIKED THIS WEEK
Elon Musk released this week the long awaited Tesla Masterplan 3. A lot of investors were underwhelmed by the lack of a big product announcement and the stock lost 5% the day after. I actually found the update super interesting, there was a lot of interesting updates on Optimus (Tesla’s humanoid robot) but more importantly I noticed how Musk put a lot of attention on revenue and costs. I was right that this is the “Alpha companies” moment in my post!!
The biggest announcement in my opinion is that Musk said Tesla is forecasting to produce 20 million vehicles per year by 2030. While we have all learned never to question Musk’s capacity to deliver, for context Tesla produced 1.3MM vehicles in 2022 and Toyota, the global sales leader, sold 10.5 million vehicles last year.That means, and follow the math, Tesla would need to increase its production (and sales mind you) about 15 times from 2022 to 2030… sounds challenging, both from a demand generation and production point of view!
Musk also spent a lot of time on the reduction of production costs to improve Tesla’s profitability, insisting on the vertical integration strategy and commenting how Tesla is looking at reducing as much as possible reliance on “rare earth materials”.I stumbled upon this interesting “passport index” that shows how easy it is to travel under each nationality’s passports, ranking nationalities by “total mobility score” (i.e. # of countries that do not require any VISA to enter). Did you guess #1 spot? I admit I would have not said that…
Interesting map:
Writing time 30’ / Reading time 10’ - Trivia result: the solution is 3, each opposite is the multiplication of the 2 digits numbers.