Why the Unskilled Are Unaware: Further Explorations of (Absent) Self-Insight Among the Incompetent

Author: Ehrlinger, J.; Johnson, K.; Banner, M.; Dunning, D.; Kruger, J.

Description: People are typically overly optimistic when evaluating the quality of their performance on social and intellectual tasks. In particular, poor performers grossly overestimate their performances because their incompetence deprives them of the skills needed to recognize their deficits. Five studies demonstrated that poor performers lack insight into their shortcomings even in real world settings and when given incentives to be accurate. An additional meta-analysis showed that it was lack of insight into their own errors (and not mistaken assessments of their peers) that led to overly optimistic estimates among poor performers. Along the way, these studies ruled out recent alternative accounts that have been proposed to explain why poor performers hold such positive impressions of their performance.

Subject headings: Unskilled; Unaware; Incompetent; Self-insight; Performance evaluation

Publication year: 2008

Journal or book title: Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes

Volume: 105

Issue: 1

Pages: 98-121

Find the full text : https://www.strategian.com/fulltext/Ehrlinger2008.pdf

Find more like this one (cited by): https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=203841726471258627&as_sdt=1000005&sciodt=0,16&hl=en

Type: Journal Article

Serial number: 2342