Unskilled and unaware--but why? A reply to Krueger and Mueller (2002).

There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

Abstract

J. Kruger and D. Dunning (1999) argued that the unskilled suffer a dual burden: Not only do they perform poorly, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it. J. Krueger and R. A. Mueller (2002) replicated these basic findings but interpreted them differently. They concluded that a combination of the better-than-average (BTA) effect and a regression artifact better explains why the unskilled are unaware. The authors of the present article respectfully disagree with this proposal and suggest that any interpretation of J. Krueger and R. A. Mueller's results is hampered because those authors used unreliable tests and inappropriate measures of relevant mediating variables. Additionally, a regression-BTA account cannot explain the experimental data reported in J. Kruger and D. Dunning or a reanalysis following the procedure suggested by J. Krueger and R. A. Mueller.

Related collections

Most cited references 4

Record: found
Abstract: not found
Article: not found

On the psychology of prediction.

Daniel Kahneman, Amos Tversky (1973)

0 comments Cited 683 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Unskilled, unaware, or both? The better-than-average heuristic and statistical regression predict errors in estimates of own performance.

Joachim Krueger, Ross A Mueller (2002)

People who score low on a performance test overestimate their own performance relative to others, whereas high scorers slightly underestimate their own performance. J. Kruger and D. Dunning (1999) attributed these asymmetric errors to differences in metacognitive skill. A replication study showed no evidence for mediation effects for any of several candidate variables. Asymmetric errors were expected because of statistical regression and the general better-than-average (BTA) heuristic. Consistent with this parsimonious model, errors were no longer asymmetric when either regression or the BTA effect was statistically removed. In fact, high rather than low performers were more error prone in that they were more likely to neglect their own estimates of the performance of others when predicting how they themselves performed relative to the group.