Is the Google Effect the New Dunning-Kruger?.

What is the Dunning-Kruger Effect?

The Dunning-Kruger effect doesn't need much explanation. We think we're very smart, when we simply and blissfully are not. And of course, it's not our fault, but rather our self-awareness. It's our self-awareness that prevents us from accurately assessing our abilities. It's not us.

Understanding the Dunning-Kruger Effect

Cornell University psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger described this concept in detail in their 1999 paper. In their study, they tested participants on their logic, grammar, and sense of humor, and the discovery was fascinating:

Logically, those who were in the bottom 25% estimated they would be among the top 60%. Which is great, they didn't think they'd be in the TOP 10.

The research showed that people blissfully underestimate their lack of abilities in social and intellectual domains. It's amazing that these people not only draw wrong conclusions and make unfortunate decisions, but they also cannot analyze their own thoughts and actions, nor, God forbid, the consequences.

The saddest part for me is that you can't even joke with them.

What Causes the Dunning-Kruger Effect?

The gentlemen, Dunning and Kruger, identified two significant components responsible for this miscalibration in thinking:

• A lack of skill or knowledge in a specific domain. They are incompetent in the area they believe they are skilled in.
• A lack of metacognition. I've written a lot about metacognition, and it's here: https://www.netokracija.com/metakognicija-zadrzavanje-zaposlenika-221388 Simply put, metacognition is the ability to be aware of or understand our own thought processes.

Now the question arises, should we assess metacognition in employees? Or "cure" Dunning-Krugers and Imposters?

When we break it down like that, it becomes clear that these two facts lead us, blissfully, to a gap between our perceived and actual performance and outcomes. And get this, as participants' skills increased, so did their metacognitive ability, which helped them recognize the limitations of their abilities. How strange and surprising. :)

Who is Affected by the Dunning-Kruger Effect?

Most of us are, to some extent, misinformed about our level of expertise, but the Dunning-Kruger effect more often impacts those who lack knowledge and skills because they don't know what they don't know.

What does this look like in practice? In the workplace, it can manifest as candidates who are overconfident but unqualified for their positions, and confident employees who are not top-tier but receive undeserved raises.

When We Think It Can't Get Worse, It Can

Knowledge is more accessible than ever today. However, there is research that suggests that on-demand access to external information, enabled by the Internet and search engines like Google, blurs the lines between internal and external knowledge, making us believe we could have - or did - remember what we actually just found.

Using Google to answer general knowledge questions artificially boosts people's confidence in their own memory and information processing abilities and leads to overly optimistic predictions about how much they will know without the Internet.

When information is at our fingertips, we can mistakenly believe it's the result of our own knowledge.

Of course, we often search for information online. Eight experiments (n = 1917) provide evidence that when people "Google," they fail to accurately distinguish their own knowledge from Internet knowledge.

Compared to those who rely solely on their own knowledge, people who use Google to answer general knowledge questions are not only more confident in their ability to access external information; they are also more confident in their own ability to think and remember.

Furthermore, those who use Google predict they will know more in the future without Internet assistance, which is a false belief indicating a misattribution of prior knowledge and highlights a practically important consequence of this misattribution: overconfidence when the Internet is no longer available.

Online searching is often faster than searching our own brains, which prevents us from fully recognizing the limitations of our own knowledge. The Internet seamlessly delivers information (especially on smartphones), merging with our internal cognitive processes and offering minimal physical cues that might draw attention to its contribution or where the knowledge actually comes from. As a result, we again become blissfully unaware and lose sight of where our own knowledge ends and where "Internet knowledge" begins.

Given that we increasingly use the Internet for fact-checking and other forms of information seeking, we have also arrived at the "Google effect."

The "Google effect" refers to the idea that we increasingly rely on the Internet as a source of knowledge, rather than memorizing it ourselves.

In a study using meta-analysis, it was found that the effects of Google are closely related to cognitive load, behavioral phenotype, and cognitive self-esteem. This phenomenon is more likely to affect us when we use a smartphone for browsing than a computer.

People with a larger knowledge base are less susceptible to the consequences of Internet use than those with a smaller knowledge base. This is logical. In general, Google's effects on memory challenge the way individuals search and read information and can lead to changes in cognitive and memory mechanisms.

Well, that's inconvenient!

Unwillingness to Learn

While each of us has special abilities, some of us assume we are better than others, and due to our excessive self-confidence, we don't think we need to learn new things. In the workplace, you can often spot these individuals as those who blame their leaders or company for problems, struggle to find jobs because their skills haven't kept pace with the market, and have low productivity. And it would be interesting to see their external locus of control, but more on that later.

Inaccurate Time Estimates

Overconfidence can lead us to be unable to predict timelines and complete tasks on time. It can also lead us to believe we can finish a project or tasks in a shorter timeframe than is accurate. Then, based on this misjudgment, we fall behind, and the project is delayed.

Why People Think They Know More Than They Do

According to a Carnegie Mellon University study, an expert's confidence is more important than their reputation or knowledge itself. It's logical, then, that if we lack knowledge, we try to compensate with confidence. And to be liked by people because we're smart.

Tip: Want to Learn How to Make People Like You? It's Not What You Think.

Ask for advice, share your vulnerability, or admit a weakness – these connect you with (normal) people. You should run from the others anyway. By the way, that's called the Franklin Effect. Asking for advice, not running away. Running away is common sense. Everything else is punishable, one way or another.

Furthermore:

• Question what you know.
• Be open to feedback.
• Learn lifelong.
• Become aware of your biases.

https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2105061118 https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/public-health/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2024.1332030/full https://www.scienceofpeople.com/dunning-kruger/