The Dunning-Kruger effect
The what? The Dunning-Kruger effect.
I only came across it the other day and it’s one of those words/phrases you didn’t realise you didn’t have a word for – until now.
Okay – I’m intrigued. What does it mean?
I can do worse than copy the quote from the Wikipedia entry: “In the field of psychology, the Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which people mistakenly assess their cognitive ability as greater than it is. It is related to the cognitive bias of illusory superiority and comes from the inability of people to recognize their lack of ability (my italics). Without the self-awareness of metacognition, people cannot objectively evaluate their competence or incompetence.”
You know – just like the proportion of people who think their driving skills are better than average?
A quick G**gle search (other search engines are available) shows variously 73%, 80% and even 90%.
Which, obviously (I hope), cannot be right…
The other outcome of the Dunning-Kruger effect is it’s a lot less likely to be a difficult keyword than most of the ones I normally use. And the Wikipedia quote comes with a zillion external links which my SEO will loooooooooooooove.
Which is useful
as, unlike the typical day which escapes inexorably like the sand in an egg timer (and is therefore frequently much too short), is positively rushing away like an avalanche.
Started yesterday.
Some work took longer than expected (nothing strange there I will admit) which meant lunchtime vanished (and it was teeming with rain anyway so I’d not have got my walk in any case) which, because I had a meeting right after lunch and my skills as a taxi driver were suddenly in demand, another three hours went walkabout.
Then (at the risk of this not being evergreen material) Lorraine and I sat down to look at whether there should be any Payment Protection insurance (PPI) claims we can make.
We could and maybe should have done this YEARS ago but the imposition of a deadline for making claims suddenly concentrates the mind!
I’d like to think it’s something I would never have been daft enough to sign up for – given I have been self-employed for ages and it doesn’t cover the self-employed – but, nothing ventured, nothing gained as they say so I’m hoping we’re not going to be the only family in the UK NOT to get a payout!
So – overall – a ten hour day.
Which considering just how smug I’m getting lately because of my four day week was a bit of a shock to my system…
And so to today
I’ve been doing a video today.
And so I got the script firmed up ages ago, didn’t I?
Nope – of course not.
I’d intended to do it yesterday but the work assignment taking longer stymied that.
Didn’t get started until 22.00 and ran out of day (and ability) before I ran out of things to write.
Which means I had to finish it this morning. Sent it off after 09.00 with an appointment time of 10.00 and a half hour journey.
Or so I thought
(it’s now seven hours later and) to continue…
The videographer’s (not in spellchecker?) studio is in Hamble, a village on the coast with:
- several marinas
- a number of large industrial estates, and
- an oil refinery
and it’s at the end of (basically) a single way in and out for heavy traffic.
So if you’re bringing in a large powerboat or similar, gift wrapped in white plastic (wot, no ribbon and bow?) – which must be an ecological nightmare to dispose of but probably prevents a lot of scratches – gets stuck on or by a humpbacked bridge over the local railway line there’s a very short time before chaos prevails.
And so everything starts to go down the back way.
Which was never designed to take that much heavy traffic.
Windy, narrow and loooooooooooooooots of parked cars.
I must have got there soon after it got stuck as the traffic was getting worse as I progressed down the lane.
And was exacerbated by a number of the locals – who obviously hadn’t heard about the obstruction (or had and chose to not make allowances) – driving as if nothing was amiss.
Dunning-Kruger effect and better than average driving skills in action.
But I got there
and Andy got there around a quarter hour later.
And so to work, after a coffee and a chat.
Andy was very complimentary about my presentation skills (thank you) and it was a fascinating morning.
But I did not get back here until nearly 14.00 so hangry I was for a while.
Even more annoyingly it was bright and warm and I didn’t have time for a walk.
Three days on the trot without my lunchtime perambulations… sigh.
But I knew I had to get this started ASAP because I was waiting for the summons to collect Die Tochter from the local station and we had a father/daughter time at the gym later.
So that’s another day vanished and 23.00 has just passed.
Go look up the Dunning-Kruger effect and thank me for giving you the phrase you needed to describe the effect.
Enough for now. Let’s catch up again next week.
