Too stupid to know they're stupid.
 

Know anyone like this? Is it me?

Unskilled and unaware of it: how difficulties in recognizing one's own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments.



The Anosognosic’s Dilemma: Something’s Wrong but You’ll Never Know What It Is (Part 1)

Good stuff!

Marichiko is the textbook example. She'd be a psychopath, but she's too dumb to pull it off.

Doesn't everyone think they are roughly average and maybe just a little bit better than everyone else?

I'd love to see a chart of how everyone at each percentile point ranked themselves, on average. Not just the dummies.

I wondered about that too, but don't want to pay $12 to find out.

I think this phenomenon can be found everywhere, not just academics.

Completely ignoring the elite players who are a world apart, you can see this happening in any soccer league you find. There are always players who are less skilled or less intelligent in their play but for the most part everyone hovers pretty close to average. Then you see THAT team that has THAT player. He/she is so unbelievably shit that it is obvious to everyone except them. They can't control the ball, they can't dribble, pass, shoot, and don't understand the concept of teamplay but they are the first first to tell you how good they are. They are the first to try to be the star. They're so shit they don't even know they're shit.

The first part, about the stupid don't know their stupid, seems self evident. Who would make bad decisions knowing they were bad?
The second part, about mediocre people who are uneducated or not smart enough to know they're mediocre, is believable too.
But when they get into anosognosia they're talking about people that are physically damaged... they were using patients with anosognosia as an example of having the same result as the first two groups. I think they should have quit there. By the time they got to the fifth part, I'm not convinced anosognosia is a good correlation. He talks about some anosognosia patients who are apparently aware of their limitations but unconsciously and selectively choose to block them.

At least I am aware that at Salsa Dancing I fail. Every time. My name is Cicero and I am a excruciatingly horrible salsa dancer. What's worse than the salsa dancing of mine? The strained look of consternation at every failed attempt. Unfortunately, knowing I am a stupid salsa dancer does not make me any smarter about it. I have not reached any new cognitive abilities because of this awareness. :)

Maybe you just have bad salsa luck Cic. ;)

I like the part where he tells students to find out who the smartest professors are and see what smart really looks like. There is nothing more grounding than thinking you are a genius, or elite at anything, than have someone just blow you right out of the water.

One reasons for such inflated scores could be that mediocre people usually associate with mediocre people. Dumb people usually associate with dumb people. Smart people usually associate with smart people. If you are smartest out of a mediocre group, you will have much higher confidence than being the dumbest out of the smart group, even though the latter may be much smarter than the former. We tend to forget that there are much smarter and dumber people than the small groups we associate with.

I've long felt that everyone is smarter than me in some way, though sometimes I have to look for a while to figure out what that way is.

Can't remember where I read it, but somewhere the inverse idea was neatly summed up as:

I am only _______ enough to know that I am not _______ enough.

I don't like the self-deprecating aftertaste, but I guess that shouldn't be the point. (It can be an affirming idea)

Undertoad's among the veterans who remember M. He also knows more than I do about whatever it was she did that was the last straw.

I have read and seen a similar phenomena regarding driving skills. Some Insurance institute did a study whose results were almost funny. Some 85% of drivers rated themselves "above average". Then they were administered a basic driving test with questions culled from written driving tests nationwide. 60% flunked. As a daily driver, I agree and might even suggest that the actual figures are even worse as some may have passed the test by guessing.

I'm pretty sure everyone on this planet knows something I don't, and that includes my kids.

I must be pretty dumb if I don't know everything. :)

Lil' Pete turned 16 so I've made it a habit to critique the driving around us when we travel together to give her a sense of what is safe/legal etc.. My commentary is almost non-stop, people are consistently stupid behind the wheel. It is almost like they have no sense of the physical world. I've had to rat myself out a couple times as well, which has improved my habits.

With my commute, I call it "running the gauntlet", my commentary is ongoing as well. I left road rage behind a long time ago, since I was much younger, but I will mumble "idiot" quite a lot. I mean, what was that lane change in the middle of construction in bumper to bumper traffic for? This lane is not going ANY faster, and you almost caused a wreck in the process.

As far as the OP, the way things have been going at work, I'm starting to think it describes ME! :(

Sorry, but I needed to put my mascara on and the light was so much better in that lane.

Every now and again, you see some fella driving like he was in a hymn.

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"Immortal, Invisible, God only wise..."

You could go on about Stop-lights inaccessible, hid from his eyes... if you want. If you have time.

Argh. Has happened to me more than once.
I got used to being the most liberal, the best read and the most intelligent person in my small clique. Forgetting that my small clique was formed of employees in an office job I hated. Jobs I mean. More than one.

Coming here was a big sigh of satisfaction. Like a shower which is just a tiny bit too cold on a hot day. People writing the way I wished I could write. Whole threads I didn't even feel qualified to post in. Humour which hit me on the back of the head because I couldn't have seen that response coming if I'd been up since dawn with radar.

Same happened to a sadder degree at my friend's wedding. I felt so stupid, so dowdy, such a failure amongst these people. They had cars and their own houses and fashions and friends et al. They talked about their lives at a level I couldn't have caught with a net. I was asked, "Didn't you find Leicester so restrictive after London? There aren't even any decent restaurants!" I failed to admit that my idea of canny eating was ordering half a portion at the local chippy because I knew he'd take pity and give me a full portion. Half of which I'd reheat the next night for tea.

I suppose one of the benefits of my subsequent meltdown was partly the ability to feel more humble. And partly giving less of a shit about the opinion of people who I'll never meet again.