Not Caring Makes Us More Honest – #365papers – 2018 – 22

Kim, Chiu, and Bregant, 2015, Unskilled and don’t want to be aware of it: The effect of self-relevance on the unskilled and unaware phenomenon: PlosONE, v. 10, e0130309

What’s it about?

This is a follow-up to the paper of Kruger and Dunning (1999), in which it was noted that low-performing individuals tend to overestimate their skill. In this paper, the authors take it one step further and show that this overestimation appears to be magnified when people place personal value or relevance on the results. That is, if individuals performing a task don’t identify with or see value in a task, they are much less likely to either over or underestimate their performance.

Why does this matter?

Psychology is much more complex than a simple relationship between lack of skill and overestimation of skill. This shows us that what value we place on tasks and the results of those tasks, affects how we perceive our performance.

Why did I read this?

This was an obvious follow-up on the discussion of the Dunning-Kruger Effect.