Have you lived these holidays with people who think without having a clue? That they have an answer for everything, often topical and shallow but very forceful? Most people have a brother-in-law, cousin or friend like this, who suffers from the so-called 'Dunning-Kruger effect', whereby the less you know, the smarter you think you are.
The psychologist and founder of Rincón de la Psicología, Jennifer Delgado, explains to La Vanguardia that "it is a cognitive bias whereby the less we know about something, the less aware we are that we do not know", that is what this problem consists of, that “it occurs fundamentally in people who have less skills, knowledge or abilities in a field”.
We saw a perfect example of this during the Covid-19 pandemic, when nobody yet knew practically nothing about the virus but they came out from under the stones with knowledge of the subject, giving their opinions and setting a chair. But you don't have to go back that far, it is very likely that these holidays, a time of many meetings with people, you have had to suffer at some point with people who know everything, with very firm opinions and without complexes to express them despite their little knowledge on the matter. That is, people under the 'Dunning-Kruge effect', a scientific explanation of the 'brother-in-law' syndrome.
The term is named after the two American psychologists who researched the subject, David Dunning and Justin Kruger, who demonstrated the paradox of this effect, which is that anyone who is incompetent tends to overestimate their ability, while anyone who is competent tends to underestimate it.
This was determined in four experiments in which they examined self-assessments in logical reasoning, grammar and humor, the results of which were published in various scientific journals such as the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. In them they demonstrated different premises such as the paradox that the less you know, the more you think you know, as well as that the incompetent "will be less able (...) to recognize the competition when they see it", to "understand their true level of performance" or even by comparing it with that of others, and, paradoxically, that they can only improve their ability to recognize their own incompetence by becoming more competent, as published in the aforementioned magazine in an article entitled Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments.
The story that gave rise to Dunning and Kruger's research is priceless, it is a paradigm of imbecility that "made these psychologists think that perhaps ignorance protects you from ignorance," Delgado explains.
In 1995 in Pittsburgh (USA) a man named McArthur Wheeler believed he had found the perfect method to rob banks without the security cameras recording his face: he thought that putting lemon juice on his face made him invisible as when it is used as ink on a paper. Convinced of the trick, he robbed a bank in broad daylight and with bare face and in this first attempt he succeeded, so he set out to rob a second.
Evidently the cameras recorded him and shortly after they arrested him to the surprise of the thief: "But I did put lemon juice on!" he said in astonishment when he was arrested.
But the story of the total incompetence of this thief does not stop there, because before deciding to rob banks, he checked the operation of his technique; he splashed lemon juice on his face and took a self-portrait to see if he would come out, it was a selfie of those of yesteryear in which you had to turn your hand with the camera and try to calculate the frame. His face did not appear in the photo, which for him was irrefutable proof that the lemon juice made him invisible to the cameras, although everything indicates that the acid juice through his eyes and nose would prevent him from focusing well and simply, his head was not in the plane.
The bizarre story was featured in the local press and upon reading it, Dunning and Kruger were shocked and designed their experiments to try to explain such daring incompetence.
Bars, beaches, social networks... everything is full of people under the influence of the Dunning-Kruger effect, full of 'brothers-in-law', in fact any of us may be suffering from it right now because "we are all prone to cognitive biases" according to Delgado, although whoever has this problem is most likely not taking it for granted.
Thus, even if you conform to the characteristics of having vehement opinions and comments for everything, of believing that you know a subject well even though you have only read two entries on the Internet, of reading this article and thinking "I already knew this" with each paragraph, If you suffer from this 'brother-in-law syndrome', you wouldn't know how to recognize it because you would be unable to detect your own incompetence.
This was also verified in one of the experiments in which they showed the people who had performed the worst on the tests what the best had done, and despite this, they continued to think that theirs had a higher level.
The investigation concludes that it is only detected when our knowledge increases, but "it's like a loop," Delgado explained to La Vanguardia, since by believing that you know, you don't delve deeper. As Darwin said, "Ignorance breeds more confidence than knowledge."
So much information at a single click has not managed to improve the symptoms of incompetent Dunning-Kruger effect sufferers, quite the contrary. "Social networks and the Internet have greatly increased this effect because we lock ourselves in bubbles of knowledge" and we are prone to reading only what we want and looking for ideas that reaffirm those we already have, which prevents us from reaching new information that helps us to broaden knowledge or that indicates that we were wrong, explains the psychologist to this newspaper.
This behavior is known as 'echo chamber', a phenomenon that occurs in the media and social networks in which users tend to find ideas that coincide with their own to reinforce their own beliefs. It doesn't just happen because people prefer to assert themselves, but also because algorithms select content related to the information we consume and offer us more of the same, what they think we want to read.
There are also experiments by other researchers that show that this idea that people only want to see what reaffirms their convictions. Delgado tells of one carried out at the University of Illinois (USA) with 200 people in which they gave the participants the opportunity to read and answer some questions about an opinion different from their own in exchange for $10 or an opinion according to their thoughts for $7, and 63% of people chose to read what they agreed with despite earning less money. They preferred to assert themselves.
In addition to the fact that 'brothers-in-law' are usually quite annoying and in general nobody likes smarties, the Dunning-Kruger effect causes problems for those who suffer from it without knowing it. One of the main consequences is that "it could lead you to make very bad decisions", explains the psychologist, since believing that they are in the power of the absolute truth can lead them not to value different options, perspectives, paths.
On the other hand, their strong and often mistaken convictions make them difficult to deal with, which can cause their close environment to distance themselves or distance themselves.
It also closes them to knowledge because this effect leads to great mental rigidity, which prevents them from knowing and enjoying new things. "You move in an ever smaller circle" which leads you to be narrow-minded, Delgado adds, who assures that this also "could become the basis of extremization" whether political, religious or of any kind.
Although there is no specific profile and all people are susceptible to cognitive biases of many kinds, in this case the ignorant are the ones who have the most ballots of having this 'brother-in-law syndrome'.
In addition, people with “artificially high self-esteem” add Delgado, that is, those we usually call “believed”, people who do not see their limitations, are also the meat of this problem.
According to the psychologist told La Vanguardia, "people with little metacognition are very prone, which is the ability to look inside yourself and know how your mental processes are going", "it is as if they do not follow up on the thought process and decisions, and therefore do not realize their mistakes.
