Do you have an ego? If so, keep reading! Would you like an ego? If so, keep reading!
This post is dedicated to us, the thinking, educated people. Pats on the back for everyone, we are all the best humans on earth. Go us.
In short, the Dunning-Kruger effect is thus: a cognitive bias in which “people who are unskilled… reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it.”
Effectively, this is a strange behaviour where the incompetent do not realize their own incompetence, due to their incompetence. They never recognize they’re doing anything wrong, indeed they outright lack the ability to even reach such a conclusion. Thus, they think they’re doing fine, nay, fantastic, and as such develop a hugely inflated opinion of themselves.
The inverse of this is also true.
The competent do not realize their own competence, because they are competent. They see greater skill in others, recognize their own failures and mistakes, and thus try to improve. Inevitably they do improve, becoming much, much better than where they used to be.
But the competent (usually) never realize it. They get better, yes, but they still think themselves the abject incompetent failure they used to be. They still make mistakes, they still see others better than they.
The incompetent unskilled develop massively inflated opinions of their own ability, whereas the competent skilled vastly and consistently underestimate themselves.
Just read the wikipedia page already.
How many of you are nodding “that is so true”? I know I am.
How else do you explain the absolute failtastic cock buckets pulling 2k DPS in 245 gear espousing their supreme uberness?
How else do you explain how Tamarind who quite obviously is a fantastic healer continues to think himself largely incapable of healing a blade of grass through a light breeze?
Consider. Let’s say you wipe. Everyone is dead, the boss is not. Where does the blame get shifted?
Incompetent people will blame others. It’s not them defending themselves, or trying to shirk the blame, trying to deflect blame so their failure isn’t revealed in front of their peers. In actuality, they are incapable of even seeing their own failure. They can’t. They flat out cannot comprehend themselves failing in any way. It must be someone else who screwed up, because they didn’t make any mistakes.
These guys do not improve, because they don’t see that there is anything that needs to be improved.
Competent people will blame themselves. It’s not self loathing, or a martyr syndrome of any sort, they are simply capable of recognizing their own short comings. They know perfectly well they can fail, have failed, and will fail in the future. They second guess everything they’ve done, analyze their own performance and say “if only I did that, if only I did this.” They “logically” come to the conclusion that it was their own fault, that they failed and single handedly caused the wipe.
These guys stop, think and talk it over, try new strategies, do research online, doing everything within their power to improve.
To all of us competent players… cheers. We rule. Now if only we could get past that crippling self doubt thing, we’d be good to go.
I tell you, right here right now, that you are awesome. You are a skilled player capable of great things. “But I-” NO! SILENCE! You are awesome! “But there was that one time where I-” OF COURSE there was! You think skilled players never make mistakes? You think skilled means flawless? NO! Skilled players make mistakes, always have and always will. What makes a skilled player skilled is that they learn from those mistakes, that they can even realize a mistake was even made.
WARNING: Critical levels of happy detected. Dumping joy to disc, loading QQ. Please stand by.
You sir, are a supremely competent genius. SILENCE!!! YOU ARE!!!
Nicely encapsulates something I’ve been trying to explain to someone for a while. If only I had known that a study had already been done. But I didn’t know that I didn’t know… now I know. Does that make me more competent?
All I know for sure is that now you know you never knew you didn’t know, you know now, and hence are more knowledgeable.
But yes, you are more competent too. It has been theorycrafted that reading this blog provides a boost of at least 800 to your DPS.
I’ve noticed quite a few excellent players that don’t think they’re as good as they actually are.
Maybe now I know why!
I’m an awesome mage and better mage because I read this blog.
I still suck at PvP. I think I’ll blame you for that, too.
I may be competent, but I could always be better. The day I feel I have made it is the day I stagnant, and I never want to do that.
“Success leads to stagnation; stagnation leads to failure.
Failure leads to maturity, maturity leads to success.” – SKZB
When I first read of this study in some magazine, I practically cheered. Finally a name for what I felt was true for so long. Not so much in Wow, because I didn’t play it back then, but at my workplace. It applied to just a few people back then, but they were always causing problems. In wow however, I have the tendency to link it to certain individuals in about every PUG I get into.. and I would, if I thought it would help.
Good post, Euripedes, but you’re only considering the extremes! As with everything, there are people in the middle, and I’m one of them. We know we are competent, and we respect ourselves for that; we’re even a little proud of it. At the same time, we grok our limitations and we work really hard to improve in areas where we we know we are not reaching our potential.
I’m coming at this from a very non-WoW perspective, because I’m not a WoW player. But it’s cool that the example you presented is really quite applicable in lots of areas of life, not just games.
I tell myself I’m plenty competent all the time. I do well in PvP using horribly gimped specs and arena comps, I have raid content on farm that the vast majority of guilds struggle to even see.
But, from my perspective, I’m nothing special. I’m just playing the game, playing the content Blizzard has designed. Sites like guild ox or whatever can tell me that I’m “better” than 95% of the 10-man guilds out there, but it never sinks in, if that makes sense. I still feel strictly average.
I know this reply is about three weeks late, but I just found this blog and am going through the archives. I’m curious about “your perspective”.
Do you perceive that you are skilled? I believe you do. From your statement that you farm raid content that “the vast majority of guilds struggle to see” indicates that you know there are a lot of people below you.
It’s not false modesty if someone on the winning team of the Super Bowl says, “Hey, I’m just doing my thing, but I ain’t special.” Here he’s comparing himself to the rest of his teammates. If he broadened the category to include all professional football players he would probably agree that he’s a bit above average. If you include collegiate atheletes in the set, then he is well above average. If you broaden the set to it’s widest, including everyone who plays football from the winners of the Super Bowl on down to Pop Warner on down to 3rd graders playing in the yard on recess it would be clear that he’s in that top 1%.
The feeling that you are “average” is quite legitimate if you also perceive that you are above the 90th percentile. You just have to ask, average among whom?
Oh I didn’t know you played wow with my old incompetent roommate.
See, I have a bit of an issue in this. I know I am better than many people who play this game and smarter than most people at my school. Does that automatically make me incompetent. When I see failure, I feel like I can clearly see what the problem was. Sometimes it’s my fault, sometimes it isn’t.
For instance, I’ve been in a VOA where the tanks tried to figure out the Lightning guy for about 10 minutes and just as many wipes. The paladin refused to tank the 4 adds, and felt the warrior was better suited to it… Anyway. I was DPS in that fight, and I didn’t feel like there was anything I could do one way for another.
The opposite is H HoR. Oh… My… God. The most inexperienced I’ve ever felt in this game was in that pull. I was trying and trying to keep up with the DPS on threat, but I couldn’t… on any mobs. I got really insecure, but I had the 69696969 thing down, and had all my buffs up. I didn’t know what I was doing wrong, but I was kicking myself for failing the entire run.
But on a different train of thought, I’m wondering how you describe doubt. Yes, there is the whole “blame one’s self” thing, but I am wondering if you would include a lack of confidence in general. With most things, if I don’t think I know something as much or more than those around me, I get panicky. This happens both when I raid and when I do somethings in real life… Say, trying a new sport, or asking out a girl (feels like you can do that 1000000000….000000000000×10 to the… you get it, times and still be unsure.)
Anyway, those are some things that came up when I read your post. I am curious to hear your thoughts on these.
Thanks Euripedes
You answer your questions in the descriptions of your questions.
You know you’re better than many others, and yet “I was kicking myself for failing the entire run” instead of kicking others. That’s all the proof you should need to dispel any illusions you have of being incompetent.
Just knowing your better than many others doesn’t mean anything. For example, earning the Challenger title in an arena season is the game flat out telling you that you are better than, at the very least, 65% of the people participating in that bracket.
It isn’t opinion, it is irrefutable fact.
But does it mean anything? Do you see other players walking around and think “statistically speaking, I’m better than them”? Do you think yourself an elite super god mode player with skills that would leave lesser players reeling?
I can’t speak for romance, as all of my attempts at relationships have been catastrophic in nature.
But see, there’s proof. Because it’s an axiom that women don’t go for the “competent, nice, smart” guys. They go for the obnoxious badboy losers.
No matter what you say, I will always suck at Shaman PVP.
Always!
I used to be a bad shadow priest.. like bad bad bad bad ect then I know I got better.. but I don’t think I will ever be great because I still think I’m scrub no matter who I beat/ know that I did my job. But it took a little time for me to realise I could be better. Maybe these ‘failtastic cock buckets’ just need a chorus telling them that they are “failtastic cock buckets” more often
.
We would need a huge chorus. A dozen players telling you that you suck are just a dozen players jealous of your awesome skills and uberness.
Would a hundred people do it? Three hundred? Three thousand?
oh god this is so true:
After every wipe or even if there is no wipe, i always question myself wether if did something wrong or could have done something better.
a few nights ago in a PuG ICC10 group we had another mage who’s equip wasn’t that bad but he was doing really bad damage. Mostly i won’t care as long as the boss dies but after a while i looked closer to what he was wearing: now this mage had gemmed epic versions of: 2x Int, 5x Spell/Spirit and Spell/Int.
i looked in armory: he also had Glyph of Evocation….
I tell him in the nicest way possible that he could gem better and use a different Gylph.
But he argud with me that Evo was the right choice of Glyph and Int is the best stat he can get as a mage. That Haste is BS coz pumps his mana away too fast. Krit maybe something he could look into. 5x Spell/Spirit was reasonable because socket-bonus such as krit were good.
He had build up a complete logic around his incompetence to even go look what EJ or anyone else in the world has to say about a mage.
I tell him just look up some statistics, charts, guides whatever i gave him several links: he insisted that he was absolutly right and he couldn’t be wrong. Now our argument switched over to the raid channel where he is trying to prove me that Evo should only be used to heal oneself…
i still cannot fathom how incompetent he was (i even looked up what he is casting in recount) and how was incompetent to believe he might wanna change his gear a bit or just have a quick look on the internet.
[WTB] edit button…
…He had build up a complete logic around his incompetence to !!! NOT !!!even go look what EJ or anyone else in the world has to say about a mage.
…i still cannot fathom how incompetent he was (i even looked up what he is casting in recount) to !!! NOT !!! believe he might need to change his gear a bit or just have a quick look on the internet.
That logic is scary.
Intellect is awesome because it gives you mana, crit and spellpower. Therefore it is the best stat, conversion rates be damned! Haste is bad, because it burns mana too fast. Evocate restores mana, and lots of it, yes, but it’s a heal spell!
It boggles the mind. The flaws are so obvious from out here.
True true. Willingness to learn is a positive trait.
But I’m not spec’ed for blade of grass healing!!! *nervous breakdown*
Actually it is really difficult to update your WoW-Self Perception. I had a moment of complete retrograde amnesia the other day in a random heroic. A blue caster dagger dropped – rather nice for a blue, and well itemised, the kind of thing you’d totally and desperately want back in the day when people ran dungeons for, y’know, the loot instead of the meta rewards – and I instinctively hesitated appraisingly over it. I was halfway to comparing it to my current dagger when my brain caught up and I realised I was wielding an enchanted epic and wearing a mixture of Tier 9 and 10 kit, and had utterly no need of loot from heroics…
It was an eerie moment, I think best categorised as “wow, I r raider.”
Those damn cloth pants that drop from Loken. They nearly never dropped, no matter how many times I ran that damn instance. The one time they did drop and I could still use them, some warlock won the roll.
Anyway, it drops all the time now, and every time it drops I always go “oooh!” and compare it to my current pants.
At which point it hits me that I’m wearing iLevel 251 pants from ICC.
I sorta do this to a lesser extent with any purple that drops from heroic, just those pants especially.
They dropped for me on my mage 20 minutes after I purchased my Tier 9 pants
You, good sir, just made my day that much better! Now find a way to screen all the replies here and calc how many of the people that commented are in group 1 and how many of them are in group 2 according to your article
If you’re following this blog, chances are you found it when looking up some mage help. If you were looking up some mage help, you’re trying to learn about your class, putting you in group 2 (non-failtastic buckets). Of course I could be wrong…
Awesome! Its so interesting how someone can point out something so obvious yet it takes someone else pointing it out for you to see it. I will try to remember my own awesomeness from now on.
You just made my day, E.
This seems like common sense to me, not sociology. Sad to say this would be funny if it wasn’t the case in some parent-child relationships and abuse.
[...] remember learning about The Dunning-Kruger Effect in my introductory psychology course… and then in introductory management… and pretty [...]
I’m not sure I’m buying this. Isn’t this overgeneralizing a bit? I am fairly confident that there are several things I’m good at and still want to be “best” in my peer group, probably the guild. On the other hand there are things I totally suck at and I’m still trying to improve. Then when I improved someone might still see that as a level of sucking, as I don’t match his skills or year-long experience.
Anyway, nice food for thought
Its even better when you run into the asshats that combine Dunning-Kruger and the Theory of Evolution with a little Peter’s Principle thrown in for good measure!
Hmm….
I’m clearly God, I will survive Everything and Be Not the Cause of Any Wipes and therefore, I am THE Raid Leader. Bow in gratitude you lesser mortals!
Scary true, eh?
I like how you applied that so nicely to raiding. Now, I’m a noob with little competence (mostly because I don’t play enough end level content), but I know that I’m a noob and I’m striving to be better, but I by far wouldn’t consider myself a “skilled player”, but I don’t think I’m the sh!t either. So, where does that put me??
Thank you for this post. This makes a post I saw on my local realm forum so clear.
[...] it’s definitely not you, Del, since you always seem to think I’m blaming you. Go read this post, your comment yesterday made me think of it [...]
Excelent post Euripedes! This is a great example of how intellegence and self-esteem are negatively correlated. As Doonesbury once awsomely said, “The sign of an educated person is that he understands how little he knows.”
Awesome.
For some people, this is scary how true it is, but for most people, this just doesn’t apply and people are so much more complex than this. After all, your theory groups everyone into:
1) Incompetent players that cannot see their own failure. Not seeing failure equates to high ego.
2) Competent players that can see their own failure. Seeing failure equates to low ego.
Yet, I’ve certainly seen many folk that are Incompetent and recognize when they fail along with Competent players that can’t see when they fail.
So, it’s very relative. Certainly, I agree that the more critical you are, the more likely you’ll be able to identify failures which should increase your chance of correcting them, but we all hit a threshold where we can’t improve. We hit a certain point where we can know something, but we can’t do something. Conversely, there’s a lot of things we can do, but won’t know we can do because the simple reality of being able to do them makes them less likely for us to know them. (The old adage of those who can’t do, teach comes to mind as well as the fact that those that are amazing at sometimes are sometimes horrible teachers)
I want you to consider the tv show personality, House, as an example of a contradiction to your theory. He’s clearly got a high ego. He constantly fails, but he does everything assuming that he’s going to be right until he turns out he’s wrong.
Course, I suppose that’s the true genius… having the confidence to screw up time and time again, but the competence to understand how to keep moving forward.
Which I suppose is your point…
But, is also my point…
Yes, there are incompetent players and there are competent players, but there are also complete failures and total geniuses and everything between. We’re all a little bit over confident undereducated at times and we’re all a bit hyper critical, unable to act at times too.
I suppose it can be summed up as:
Once you think you know everything, look for what you don’t know. Once you think you know nothing, look for what you do. Greatness is acting like you know everything while realizing you know nothing.
Nothing less than perfection will do.
I know i am not perfect.
I must accept my (and others) limitations with a smile or i could end up in a bad place.
[...] Critical QQ psychoanalyses WoW’s in/competent players [...]
[...] The Dunning-Kruger Effect by Euripedes at Critical QQ. A very interesting read about conclusions reached by competent and incompetent players, none of which are entirely accurate. [...]
[...] refer over to Critical QQ for a discussion of the Dunning-Kruger Effect in relation to WoW, which is also relevant here. This [...]
[...] The Dunning-Kruger Effect by Euripedes at Critical QQ. A very interesting read about conclusions reached by competent and incompetent players, none of which are entirely accurate. [...]