Why People Fail to Recognize Their Own Incompetence
Abstract
Successful negotiation of everyday life would seem to require people to possess insight about deficiencies in their intellectual and social skills. However, people tend to be blissfully unaware of their incompetence. This lack of awareness arises because poor performers are doubly cursed: Their lack of skill deprives them not only of the ability to produce correct responses, but also of the expertise necessary to surmise that they are not producing them. People base their perceptions of performance, in part, on their preconceived notions about their skills. Because these notions often do not correlate with objective performance, they can lead people to make judgments about their performance that have little to do with actual accomplishment.
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The double curse means that people who lack the skills to produce right answers also lack the ability to judge whether their own answers and those of other people are right.
“This double curse means that those people who lack the skills to produce the right answers likewise lack the ability to judge whether their own answers (and those of other people) are in fact right.”
From The Exam Autopsy: An Integrated Post-Exam Assessment Model (2019) · cites this paper as Dunning et al., 2003
The self-regulated learning skills that are necessary to effectively use chatbots during research are also necessary to evaluate one's own performance.
“Dunning et al., (2003) dub this the”
From Using ChatGPT is easy, using it effectively is tough? A mixed methods study on K-12 students’ perceptions, interaction patterns, and support for learning with generative AI chatbots (2025) · cites this paper as Dunning et al., (2003)
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- Authors
- Dunning, D., Johnson, K., Ehrlinger, J., & Kruger, J.
- Affiliations
- University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (US)
- Venue
- Current Directions in Psychological Science
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2003-06
- Volume
- 12
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 83-87
- ISSN
- 0963-7214 (ISSN-L)
- 1467-8721
- OpenAlex
- W2169211232
- Cited by
- 1,224
- References
- 2
- Citations by year
- 2026: 52 · 2025: 51 · 2024: 55 · 2023: 73 · 2022: 85 · 2021: 83 · 2020: 104 · 2019: 97 · 2018: 74 · 2017: 78 · 2016: 66 · 2015: 87 · 2014: 53 · 2013: 47 · 2012: 48
- FWCI
- 10.30
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Current Directions in Psychological Science (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institutes of Health
- National Institute of Mental Health
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › General Decision Sciences › Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Personality Traits and Psychology
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Sport Psychology and Performance
- Keywords
- self-perception, self-assessment, self-awareness, self-knowledge, self-efficacy, performance judgments, metacognition
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