Dunning–Kruger effect

Published on

Transcript:

A webcomic in four panels:

Panel 1: A very young knight, poorly equipped (oversized pants, topless, wooden sword and shield, rusty helmet), screams with overconfidence in front of a cave on a foggy night.

Knight: Master of Dragons! I challenge you to a duel, against ME, the greatest knight the kingdom has ever known!!! My knowledge of fencing is unrivaled!!!

Panel 2: The dragon walks calmly out of the cave, only the large nose is visible while his head is still in shadow. Not a fierce look, but a massive size. He is just tired of this kind of interruption. The knight continues:

Knight: You're terrified, aren't you?! well, you should be! I'm terrifying! Show Yourself!!! Coward!!!

Panel 3: The camera shows an oversized dragon, the knight is the size of a mosquito, attacking his toenails. The dragon just look at the situation with thinking. And an epic full moon illuminates the scene.

Knight: Hyah! Hyah! Partner of the dragon (off panel, from the cave): Honey, who is that?

Panel 4: A close-up of the dragon, turning his head towards the cave to answer his partner:

Master of Dragons: It's no one. As usual: an overconfident newbie, victim of overestimating his own abilities. A classic bias in human nature. Knight (off panel): Hyah! Hyah!


34 comments

link Riedler hypothetically as a parody in minecraft   - Reply
Riedler@donotsta.re

the dunning kruger effect has largely been disproven (or at least what people think it is) and people are generally ok at estimating their own abilities.

regardless, good comic 10/10

link Konrad Rudolph   - Reply
klmr@mastodon.social

@Riedler That’s not true. There was one recent paper that made a splash claiming this, but multiple studies over the years have corroborated the general existence of such an effect in various scenarios.

link Scien   - Reply
scien@social.linux.pizza

@klmr @Riedler There may be a different study that shows this effect, but the original paper was completely incorrect: it was autocorrelation.

As for a "general effect" - we have evidence that novices will misjudge their expertise more than experts, yes, but this goes *both* ways. The original paper simply claims they overestimated (or, at least, overestimated wildly more than they underestimated).

Also, it wasn't simply a *recent* paper that disproved the original - there's papers as early as 2016. That's 8 years ago.

link Scien   - Reply
scien@social.linux.pizza

@klmr @Riedler See: this thread I made here about it: social.linux.pizza/@scien/1126

If you know of any studies that indicate a similar conclusion as the original dunning-krueger effect study, I'd be quite interested.

link Riedler hypothetically as a parody in minecraft   - Reply
Riedler@donotsta.re

@scien @klmr honestly you just need to think about it a bit to disprove the original study. look at the graph and think about what it really means. yeah, nothing at all, really. With a bit of an asterisk, but it's definitely not what people generally think.

I'd love to do an explainer on this but I'm a bit scared of coming off as too, err… womansplainy? idk, I hope you know what I mean.

link Marc Tapages 🐰⏚🚲🎺   - Reply
marctapages

encore un à croire que c'est malin de dissoudre....

Je pense que je souffre d'un biais aussi :-\

link Gynux   - Reply
Gynux@the.goofs.space

Ah tiens, je ne connaissais pas cet effet ! Merci !
Pas sûr que je le retienne par contre...
Sur l'article wikipedia, l'exemple donné (à base de jus de citron) est assez saisissant et j'avoue que je n'aurais pas nécessairement décrit le protagoniste comme quelqu'un souffrant de "surconfiance" 🤣
Ceci dit, je suis sûr que ça m'est déjà arrivé dans une moindre mesure.

link Oregon Wine Woman   - Reply
NorCalWineLady@sfba.social


What came to mind? A classic Calvin and Hobbs tale. Still, good and funny at the same time.

link overbyte   - Reply
overbyte@gamepad.club

funny with beautiful art. #follow

link David Revoy Author, - Reply
davidrevoy

@overbyte Thank you!

link Marty Fouts   - Reply
MartyFouts@mastodon.online

DK is my favorite example of bad science that resonates so much that it’s impossible to convince people it’s wrong. The original paper had an error in the statistical analysis. It turns out that there is no correlation between intelligence and the ability to self evaluate it. Over confidence is just as likely among highly intelligent people as it is among everyone else.

link Scien   - Reply
scien@social.linux.pizza

@MartyFouts Interestingly, I believe there was a separate study that proved there was a phenomenon present about misjudging your capabilities - but it went both ways.

In short, the study concluded a lack of expertise (in a particular subject, not intelligence mind you) was correlated with both overestimating AND underestimating your capabilities.

Which makes a lot of sense. How do you know where you stand in terms of expertise without knowing of trends in the wider field?

link m_on_stair   - Reply
m@miruku.cafe

@MartyFouts@mastodon.online @davidrevoy@framapiaf.org
oh? i was under the impression that it corretly claimed that people who are not average (either significantly worse or better than average) tend to guess their abilites lean more towards average.

what you said is interesting and i wouldnt be surprised if its true, do you have a source?

link Jamie Richardson   - Reply
writingshrink@mastodon.social

@m @MartyFouts Marty may have other sources but this one is a good read: economicsfromthetopdown.com/20

link m_on_stair   - Reply
m@miruku.cafe

@writingshrink@mastodon.social @MartyFouts@mastodon.online @davidrevoy@framapiaf.org
this is very nicely put!
turns out what I thought dunning kruger was was a little bit more sensical than what they claimed, but was still wrong!
cool stuff!

link Kelson   - Reply
kelson@notes.kvibber.com

@MartyFouts I was always under the impression that the effect was describing a correlation between competence at a specific skill and the ability to evaluate it, not overall intelligence.

link OldGeek   - Reply
oldgeek@masto.yttrx.com

@MartyFouts

Yup. I believe SV is full of 'em

link Christmas Sun   - Reply
sun@shitposter.world

he's a kid, the dragon should encourage him to get better!

link MHunt   - Reply
mhunt@socel.net

you should read the "Dragon Knights"

link David Revoy Author, - Reply
davidrevoy

@mhunt Thank you for the recommendation. This one? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_K

link MHunt   - Reply
mhunt@socel.net

no, this one:

amazon.co.uk/Chronicles-Dragon

It was published by Delcourt but I went to their website and couldn't find it.

link   - Reply
derle

@mhunt La geste des chevaliers dragons ?

link MHunt   - Reply
mhunt@socel.net

@derle yes. I only know the English title. I think it doesn't has new volumes.

link   - Reply
derle

@mhunt It has 32 volumes in French ^^ (the editor is Soleil, not Delcourt, even if Delcourt bought Soleil their genre are a bit different)

link David Revoy Author, - Reply
davidrevoy

@derle @mhunt Wow, that's a large saga. i'll try to keep the title in mind when I visit my book store.

link   - Reply
derle

It's very Soleil through, you have been warned ^^ @mhunt

link m_on_stair   - Reply
m@miruku.cafe

@davidrevoy@framapiaf.org
the comic is great but this isnt really dunning kruger

link Vincent Cantin   - Reply
greenCoder@functional.cafe

"This is but a scratch" ^_^

🖼️ f195147ff150cfc3.png 

link Gen X-Wing   - Reply
breadbin@bitbang.social

The wooden sword gets me:)

link Frischling   - Reply
Frischling@wehavecookies.social

@anatoliyl no, those knights only exist, because they smell bad and don't taste.

link Jean-Marc Courtiade   - Reply
jmcourtiade

Nice one. Also known as the Dunning–Kruger effect (this is terrible with under-aged bosses or managers...)

link Chakat Firepaw   - Reply
chakatfirepaw@universeodon.com


(A week later.)

"Again? Let me guess, you are another great knight?"
"Me? No no no, I'm just a high school student from another universe who has...."
"HONEY! Pack the hoard and get out of here!"

link elCelio 🇪🇺 🇺🇦   - Reply
elCelio@mastodon.uno

an annoying mosquito


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