The Dunning Kruger Effect: A Reason for Psychometric Testing

Introduction

The Dunning-Kruger effect is a cognitive bias that causes people to exaggerate their knowledge or abilities, particularly in areas where they have little or no experience. It refers to the almost prevalent tendency of low performers to exaggerate their abilities compared to others and, to a lesser degree, of high performers to underestimate their performance and abilities. The Dunning Kruger effect can be found everywhere and in all sorts of individuals, that is, athletes, college students, drivers, medical technicians, software developers, and so on. Social psychologist Dunning and Kruger tested the abilities of four groups of young adults in three domains, that is, humour, logic or reasoning, and grammar in the studies reported in their paper Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing Ones Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments (1999).

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