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Dunning Kruger effect

or Dunning Kruger syndrome

What does the Dunning Kruger effect mean?

The Dunning Kruger effect explains why incompetent people are unable to see that they’re incompetent.

Related words:

Where does Dunning Kruger effect come from?

Dunning Kruger effect
Odyssey

Sometimes referred to as Dunning Kruger syndrome, the Dunning Kruger effect was coined by psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger to explain why incompetent people cannot see their own incompetence.

Published in 1999 in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the researchers’ paper examined the self-insight necessary to recognize one’s own shortcomings, only to come to the conclusion that the poorer we are at performing, the more likely we are to fail when it comes to seeing our own flaws.

Examples of Dunning Kruger effect

Remember when Dunning-Kruger was just a syndrome, not an epidemic?
@ScottGreenfield, July, 2018
Jordan is that very loud guy at the end of every bar with Dunning Kruger syndrome.
@DdaannHhaanniiu, June, 2018
This president defines Dunning-Kruger syndrome. Don’t address him, address his staff and what they need to do when he does almost everything wrong.
@yasegumi, July, 2018
SEE MORE EXAMPLES

Who uses Dunning Kruger effect?

me.me

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Note

This is not meant to be a formal definition of Dunning Kruger effect like most terms we define on Dictionary.com, but is rather an informal word summary that hopefully touches upon the key aspects of the meaning and usage of Dunning Kruger effect that will help our users expand their word mastery.