Universal Principles of Design, Updated and Expanded Third Edition

053 Dunning-Kruger Effect

A tendency for unskilled people to overestimate their competence and performance.

The Dunning-Kruger effect (DKE), proposed by the psychologists Justin Kruger and David Dunning, states that novices in any given domain tend to overestimate their performance, while experts are more accurate or even underestimate their performance. As a consequence, novices tend to be overconfident in their judgments and behavior, whereas experts tend toward greater humility. The likely cause is that novices lack both the introspective access and the knowledge and experience to recognize their incompetence, as well as the competence of others.1

The DKE creates a seeming paradox for novices: An incompetent person can’t perceive their own ...