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The illusion of superiority: the Dunning‐Kruger effect and COVID‐19

2022; Wiley; Volume: 58; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1111/jpc.15693

1440-1754

David Isaacs,

Emotions and Moral Behavior

In Garrison Keillor's fictional Minnesota town of Lake Wobegon, 'all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking and all the children are above average'. Keillor, whose endearing and often hilarious radio show on the inhabitants of Lake Wobegon, The Prairie Companion, ran for 42 years, is an astute observer of the human condition. The Lake Wobegon effect even entered the Lexicon in 1988, when US physician John Jacob Cannell observed that all 50 US states reported elementary school results above the national average. Research shows that most humans rate themselves superior than others in intelligence, ambition, friendliness and, ironically, in modesty.1, 2 This has been referred to in psychology as either the 'self-enhancement' effect or the 'superiority illusion'. Depressed people with 'depressive realism' are some of the few people who do not over-estimate their own ability.1 In 1995, an armed bank robber robbed two Pittsburgh banks in broad daylight, without a mask. He was identified from security camera images. When police arrested him, McArthur Wheeler said: 'But I wore the juice'. He had rubbed lemon juice on his face to make it invisible, because lemon juice is used as invisible ink. He tested his theory out before the heists, by putting juice on his face, then taking his own photo with a Polaroid camera, which showed no face. He was as skilled at photography as at bank robbery. Intrigued by the story of McArthur Wheeler, social psychologists Justin Kruger and David Dunning asked psychology undergraduates to perform tests of problem-solving using logic, analysis of grammar and assessment of whether jokes were funny.3 The tests revealed a cognitive bias, whereby those who scored the lowest grossly over-estimated their test performance and ability.3 In the abstract of their seminal paper, Kruger and Dunning wrote '….people who are unskilled in these domains suffer a dual burden: Not only do these people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it'.3 The phenomenon subsequently became known as the Dunning–Kruger effect, sometimes called 'the unskilled and unaware effect'. It provided scientific evidence for what Charles Darwin had recognised in 1871, more than a century earlier, when he wrote in The Descent of Man: 'Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge'. Although McArthur Wheeler's story makes us laugh, the Dunning–Kruger effect is no joke. It is part of the human condition. Fortunately, the lack of insight is potentially remediable. In their paper, Kruger and Dunning point out that: 'Paradoxically, improving the skills of the participants, and thus increasing their metacognitive competence, helped them recognize the limitations of their abilities'.3 The Dunning–Kruger effect applies to some anti-vaxxers: in one study, more than a third of US adults thought they knew more than doctors (36%) and scientists (34%) about the causes of autism.4 The medical profession is certainly not immune to the illusion of superiority. In an assessment of family medicine residents breaking bad news, the highest performing doctors under-estimated and the lowest performing doctors over-estimated their own abilities. When shown videotaped interviews of other residents breaking news, whose performance ranged from very good to very bad, the highest performing doctors realised they had performed better than they thought. However, the lowest performing doctors were less likely to re-calibrate and recognise their lack of ability.5 Although this lack of insight is a worry, there is hope that education will help them gain insight and perform better. When UK paediatricians decided to split from the Royal College of Physicians to form the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health in 1996, they decided it was important to feed back to advanced trainees on their progress in training. However, they quickly had to modify the format of the feedback because trainees told their performance was average, were mortified and became quite depressed and anxious. They had never been called average in anything before. The COVID-19 pandemic has provided copious evidence of the Dunning–Kruger effect in action. Many people have behaved as if they know more than public health physicians about COVID-19, and have ignored advice about wearing masks6 or about social or physical distancing (Fig. 1).7 In a study of 2487 members of the public, those who knew less about COVID-19 were more likely to have sourced their information from mass media and social networks.7 In July 2021, US Senator Rand Paul, a non-practicing ophthalmologist, claimed to know more about research into 'gain of function' in coronaviruses than Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Fauci called out the senator's Dunning–Kruger tendencies in a Congressional hearing, saying: 'Senator Paul, you do not know what you're talking about, quite frankly. And I want to say that officially. You do not know what you are talking about'. Children are much less likely than adults to get severe COVID-19 yet, during the COVID-19 pandemic, they have been separated from their peers, been more likely to suffer or witness abuse, become more anxious and, in resource-poor countries, gone hungry.8-11 They have borne the brunt of school closures, which are primarily to protect parents and teachers not children, and should only be used as a last resort.8, 10, 11 In Australia, some influential commentators with more hubris than knowledge have pushed for school closures against expert advice. Those in the health profession working with children are wise to take sensible infection control measures to protect themselves and their loved ones. However, we must ensure those measures are proportionate and do not harm children unduly, for example, by over-zealous restrictions on visiting sick children in hospital.9-11 Psychologists Ben Tappin and Ryan McKay performed a novel study to show that our illusions of superiority also apply to how moral we think we are.12 They asked 270 participants to judge themselves and 'the average' person's morality, agency and sociability. Almost all the participants inflated their moral qualities in an irrational way, believing themselves more just, more trustworthy and morally superior to others.12 The illusion of moral superiority may allow us to salve our conscience while we engage in immoral actions, something described as the 'moral licensing effect'.2 When an Australian teaching hospital recently asked their consultants about values they might espouse and promote, the values suggested were mostly those you would expect, such as expertise, dedication, reliability and empathy. However, when a consultant surgeon with a grounding in ethics suggested humility as a prized value, he was shouted down by his fellow consultants. Clearly, they felt they had nothing to be humble about. Yet humility is crucial for recognising the Dunning–Kruger effect in ourselves, something which by definition we fail to recognise. Only by reflecting and acknowledging our own Dunning–Kruger effect, can we deal with our over-confidence on matters where we would be wise to consult or defer to others. I thank Dr Philip Britton, Dr Annaleise Howard-Jones, Dr Henry Kilham, Ms Anne Preisz and Professor Mike South for sage advice on earlier drafts.