Self-Images Often Erroneously Inflated ("blissfully incompetent")

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/DyeHard/story?id=1291826

Study: Self-Images Often Erroneously Inflated ("blissfully incompetent")

People Often Hold High Opinions of Themselves -- Sometimes Too High (per research by David Dunning of Cornell, Chip Heath of Stanford and Jerry M. Suls of the University of Iowa)

Lee Dye's ABCNEWS.com column

Nov. 9, 2005 — A reporter I once knew sashayed across the newsroom one day with his colossal ego draped across his chest, just as an old veteran mumbled, "I'd like to buy him for what he's worth and sell him for what he thinks he's worth."<snip>

Looking at a wide range of studies, they zero in on two main causes for "flawed self-assessment" (although they are by no means the only reasons): We deceive ourselves because we lack the necessary information to make an accurate assessment; and we often ignore or undervalue the information we do have.<snip>

"Complete strangers armed only with scant information about an individual can predict that person's skills and abilities almost as well as he or she can, despite the fact that the individual has a lifetime of self-information to draw upon," the researchers say, pointing to a study in which participants were asked to estimate the intelligence of a stranger in a tape recording who had just read a weather report, and then walked out of the room.

"Participants who viewed these tapes — and who had no additional information — provided ratings of intelligence that predicted the targets' scores on standard IQ tests almost as well as the targets' self-ratings," the study reports.<snip>

"People are often motivated to reach flattering conclusions about themselves and their place in the world," the researchers conclude. "Thus, they mold, manage and massage the feedback the world provides them so that they can construe themselves as lovable and capable people."<snip>

Eek!

says they are in the minority!

:-)

"...and we often ignore or undervalue the information we do have."

He coined the term "learned helplessness" for a model of depression.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=martin+seligman&btnG=Google+Search

Dunning, D and J Kreuger. 1999. Unskilled and unaware of it: how difficulties in recognizing one's own incompetence lead to inflated self-assesments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 77(6): 1121-1134.

They conclude that:
1) Incompetent people dramatically overestimate their ability and
2) Incompetent people are not good at recognizing incompetence- their own or anyone else's.

We met because he was trying to learn Japanese, only he had no knack for languages. He kept telling me what a great student of languages he was and how language learning was one of his greatest talents.

Uh, no. Even the fact that he wasn't keeping up with the rest of the class failed to disabuse him of his delusion.

After we broke up, he came to Japan for a conference while I was spending the summer there, and I agreed to meet him in Tokyo and show him around. The first step was to meet him at the train from the airport. I gave him exact directions for how to find the train that went to the station where I would be waiting. (At that time, there was only one line that went directly from the airport to Tokyo.)

I waited for three hours, and he never showed up, so I went back to the apartment hotel where I was staying, wondering if perhaps he had missed his plane.

At about nine P.M., he called me from his hotel. He had decided that he didn't need my instructions and that he could "practice his Japanese" by figuring out for himself how to get into the city.

He ended up taking the slowest, most circuitous route imaginable. And he never apologized for the fact that I stood waiting for three hours at the station where the right train terminated.

The next day, we were at a sort of food court type place in a park, and he needed to get change for a 10,000 yen bill (about $40 at the time). I gave him the phrase for "Could you please break this bill for me?"

Then I watched as he went from booth to booth, asking his question, provoking reactions of bewilderment or panic each time.

Finally, he came back. "You gave me the wrong phrase!" he said.

I asked him what he had said. It turned out that he had mangled the pronunciation so badly that it bore little resemblance to "please break this bill" and had morphed into "Please continue this."

I could also tell you about dinner that night, when he had a mini-tantrum because a restaurant serving Japanese cuisine exclusively wouldn't serve him milk with his meal. He needed his calcium, damn it!

By the end of the day, I remembered vividly why our relationship had been brief.

They want to pretend that they know whats going on up until sane hearts have the courage to say otherwise.

He was a Republican, no doubt.

How dare this person insinuate that I am not as great as I know I am. They obviously are not great intepreters of greatness.

A guy on a balcony looking at a star-filled sky and says, "It makes me realize how insignificant most people are. :)

I admire your greatness when I was in question about Plank's constant. I thank you for your explanation for now, I know this much better. I am puzzled. My teacher now seems to want to pump his chest and proclaim greatness! Would this not make all that has been stood up for in the past reduced? Okay, to be fair.... What is greatness?

...sarcasm, especially when it is my sarcasm.

Seriously, I would suppose that really greatness is really not being able to regenerate an explanation of Planck's constant so much as it is in being Planck.

Planck was of a rare breed of the type not represented by NNadir. He was not only one of history's greatest scientists, but he was also a great human being. He was one of the few German scientists to speak out against the persecution of the German Jewish scientists in particular, and Jews in general. Indeed, his son was executed in the plot against Hitler's life in 1944.

All of Planck's important private papers were destroyed in an allied bombing raid in the last weeks of the war.

I ain't Planck.

I have no idea how Planck regarded himself.

I will say that I don't take "research" in which people are "objectively" "measured" seriously. This is, as noted by another poster here, Ignobel quality research.

"Thus, they mold, manage and massage the feedback the world provides them so that they can construe themselves as lovable and capable people."