There are many instances in today’s society when one will wonder, “What in the world is that person thinking?” This question may be asked regarding someone’s outfit, singing performance, or even career choice. How could someone be so wrong about their judgment or knowledge? The purpose of this paper is to provide some incite to how people could be so oblivious of their incompetence.
In 1999, David Dunning and Justin Kruger performed studies to test the competence of individuals and the effect of competence or incompetence on self-assessments. Dunning and Kruger stated, “…the skills that engender competence in a particular domain are often the very same skills necessary to evaluate competence in that domain-one’s own or anyone else’s” (Kruger & Dunning, 1999, p.1121). Therefore, incompetent people lack metacognition skills which are crucial to identifying how well one is performing.
In all areas of life, there are people who are not aware of the deficit between what they think they can do and their actual ability. Those who are less competent tend to overestimate their abilities while those who are more competent tend to underestimate their abilities. Studies show that bottom performers tend to overestimate their performance by approximately 30% (Hawes, 2010). Unskilled performers are said to have “illusory superiority” which causes the incompetent to overestimate their abilities. This leads the unskilled performers to “mistakenly rate their ability much higher than average (Lightfoot, 2012).”
An example of the Dunning-Kruger effect has been presented by Joe Lightfoot, Director and co-founder of Move. Eat. Treat. Lightfoot’s example explains how most healthcare professionals are not knowledgeable enough to provide lifestyle advi...
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...epress critical feedback because of social norms set forth in our culture. Fay, Jordan, and Ehrlinger (2012) state, “After a friend’s imperfect piano recital, we might keep our critiques to ourselves and, instead, imply that we enjoyed the performance immensely”(p.206). A little bit of criticism does a lot more good than a lot of empty praise. The Dunning-Kruger effect will continue to plague our society as long as we keep following social norms that encourage misleading feedback.
Conclusion
Obviously there is not one specific way to treat everyone who is incompetent. The goal though should be to increase the awareness of potential incompetence. One should not be assumed incompetent because they are arrogant or assumed competent because they are unconfident. Instead we should provide honest feedback to our peers while also seeking that same honesty from others.
The purpose of this story was to illustrate the importance of how people view themselves and their abilities.
“There is no elevator to success, you have to take the stairs,” was said by motivational speaker and American author Zig Ziglar. This relates to Carol S. Dweck’s article “Brainology” and Sherman Alexie’s essay “Superman and Me.” Ziglar, Dweck, and Alexie all feel that it isn’t easy for someone to become successful. It takes hard work, perseverance, and the want to learn and grow. In Dweck’s article, she stated that someone with a growth mindset would become more successful and knowledgeable than someone with a fixed mindset, which was demonstrated by Alexie in his essay, and by a personal experience of my own.
People with growth mind-sets often believe that one can succeed simply by trying and having the motivation to do so. On the other hand, those with fixed mind-sets believe they are either good or bad at something, while attempting something for the first time. If one can easily do math while another can’t, the one who can’t accepts it and doesn’t feel the need to try succeeding further because they’re just not good at it in the first place.
As I read the part on low expectations, I found myself agreeing with Cose. One of his fellow employees of the New York Daily News talked about his career being blocked. His own expectations of himself were causing him no room to grow. Conrad Harper commented that if someone is constantly being told he can never amount to anything better, he will in fact start questioning his own abilities.
Results of students who received praise for intelligence: The students in this category had negative results after receiving praising. When asked afterwards if they wanted to do the same level of problems or try more challenging ones, they chose the task that would allow them to look smart and do well on. Consequently, while telling a child how smart he or she is, we are sending a message to not take risks and just look the part. Afterwards, these children were given a hard task, which they performed poorly on, and they know longer liked the problems and did not want to practice them at home. Children also felt “dumb” and when given the initial task (in which they did well), they performed significantly worse. Lastly, their opinions of intelligence reflected that it was an innate capacity as though you cannot improve.
Stosny states that “criticism fails because it embodies two of the things that human beings hate the most: it calls for submission, and we hate to submit and it devalues, and we hate to feel devalued” (Stosny). Furthermore, he argues that criticism is used as a form of “ego defense” when we feel devaluated by behavior or attitude as opposed to disagreeing with their behavior or attitude (Stosny). Tony Schwartz, author of the article “There’s No Such Thing as Constructive Criticism” for HarvardBusinessReview.com, says that criticism “challenges our sense of value” and “implies judgement and we all recoil feeling judged” (Schwartz). Schwartz reiterates the point that constructive criticism is a useful tool that isn’t working or doesn’t exist simply because people don’t know how to properly give or receive constructive criticism. To prove this, he lists three reasons why we assume constructive criticism doesn’t work while in reality it actually does. “The first mistake we often make is giving feedback when we are feeling that our own value is at risk. That’s a recipe for disaster, and it happens far more commonly than we think, or are aware” (Schwartz). To summarize this reason he listed, Schwartz states that when we feel like we’re being
When many people write, including myself, they get attached to their writing. Although writing can be a personal thing, I’ve learned that it is important to step away from your paper, and take the feedback on an objective level. The first time I got feedback, I had an overwhelming urge to defend myself. I remember reading that my introduction wasn’t complete, and that my evidence wasn’t properly introduced. I wanted to walk up to those who critiqued my paper, and spit right in their faces. ‘How dare they say bad things about my paper?’ I thought to myself. From here, I went back into my essay, and looked at what they had told me were errors. It was then that I realized that they were right. My introduction needed more background information, and my evidence should have had more of an introduction. They weren’t trying to be mean; they were just helping me receive a better grade, by looking at my essay through an objective view. Now, I go out of my way to ask people for feedback, and tell them to be honest. I want my paper to be the very best it can be, so it isn 't helpful when people hold back. I now understand that those giving feedback aren’t insulting me, or the paper; they are just suggesting ways to improve, or enhance my ideas. Giving and receiving feedback is a hard, yet important skill to learn, and hope to continue improving in this
According to “The Allegory of the Cave,” “ The Oedipus Complex,” and “ The Personal and the Collective Unconscious,” people 's behavior in society originates in the conscious and unconscious minds. Different people have different kinds of personalities which are caused by different types of education, environments, cultures and experiences. These elements strongly influence how they regard the world, and influence how their conscious mind works. When people act how they want it means that they use their conscious minds. However, these elements also compose the unconscious which consists of the processes in the human mind that occur automatically and are not available to introspection, such as saying wrong words. In this way, the authors
Humans are imperfect. It 's crucial and enlightening to step out of ourselves once a while and look back as a third person. Solicit and appreciate honest feedback that shows us our weaknesses, so that we can work on it to be real, not perfect. However, for some of us, it 's not easy and I understand it. It 's not about how senior we are, how rich we are or even how talented we are, but it 's about how real we are to accept the fact that we are still imperfect.
The importance of cognitive reflection on both a personal and managerial level has grown in relevance in recent times linked to new concerns surrounding its direct effect on the way in which decisions are made. This essay aims to offer a clear overview of cognitive reflection, the test itself, how it provides one way of measuring cognitive ability and indicate why a well known and developed understanding of it is vital when considering the decision making process in practice. Further I will look to critically analyze the associated benefits and shortcomings of cognitive reflection, coming to a justified conclusion drawing on relevant theories and research.
Gray, S. W., & Zide, M. R. (2007). An introduction to the competency-based assessment model.
(Chap 10) Soliciting feedback is needed to not only improve oneself but also performance and relationship between family, friend, co-workers, etc. I remember when I was little, I would always eat and would be bigger than the other kids in my grade. I hated when people or my family would tell me to lose weight because it hurts my self-esteem. However, if it weren’t for those feedbacks about my health, I think I would not be aware of how I would have many heart problems or diseases in the future. I’ve became more aware of how I am and started to pay attention more to what I eat and how I exercise. By being more aware of health, actions, etc. people are able to be more positive and learn to value opinions and take action. Self-assessment is when using self-inquiry and reflection in order to gain insights into oneself. Especially when reflecting on certain actions and feelings within the team. When I need calm down or reduce my stress levels, I would meditate or paint to relieve myself. Exercising also helped me to increase my endorphins, especially when there’s so many assignments or in need of a break. People adapt more to reflecting themselves would become more satisfied about
The true nature of intelligence has been debated more intensely then ever over the last century. As the science of psychology has developed one of the biggest questions it had to answer concerned the nature of Intelligence. Some of the definitions that have been given for intelligence have been the ability to adjust to one’s environment. Of course by such a definition even a person who is generally considered to be dull can be regarded as being intelligent if he can take care of himself. Other definition is such as having the tendency to analyze things around yourself. However it can be argued that such behavior can lead to over-analyzing things and not reacting to one’s environment and dealing with it in an intelligent manner.
In this chapter, I learned new ways to give and to accept feedback. Personally, I like getting feedback. I like it because it allows me to improve on my work. For example, whenever I write essays I like to have another person look at it so they can catch any small, or even big, mistakes that I may have done. This chapter also taught me that too much negative feedback can really take a toll on a person negatively. When you give somebody too much negative feedback, that person can start to think that they’re doing everything completely wrong and can really be detrimental to their self-esteem. To give good feedback, you should give the person more positive feedback than negative. You should use constructive rather than destructive feedback. Constructive feedback is more information specific and issue specific based on observations without using judgement. Destructive feedback is full of judgement and isn’t helping the person learn. When you get the feedback, it is best to reframe it and then reconstruct it to your advantage. Getting feedback is always a good tool to get but not when it only contains
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