Dunning-Kruger Effect 101.

[00:00:00]Do you know the connection between a lemon, invisible ink, and the Dunning-Kruger effect? No, I didn't know until today and I'm going to prove it to you. So, let's go. We need a lemon.

[00:00:11]Don't Google what I'm about to do. Just be ready to be amazed. It also has political implications, of course. It's me. Actually, go get your own lemon and you can do the experiment with me and we can learn together. Going back to school. Okay, I'm going to put you guys here and then I'm going to go get the desk to do this whole lemon experiment.

[00:00:30]Stand by.

[00:00:32]I got to carry it around.

[00:00:36]Got to get a chair.

[00:00:40]What, you guys didn't even turn the table for me? You don't have to help at all.

[00:00:43]I'm just going to lower you down. You got a good seat?

[00:00:49]>> [music] >> Just got to plug this in over there. One second.

[00:00:53]All right. You guys good to go?

[00:00:56]Yeah?

[00:00:57]So, we're going to start with the lemon, okay? We're going to cut it in half cuz we need to get the lemon juice out.

[00:01:04]You're going to use a Charlie Brown cup from Halloween. You're going to squeeze out the lemons.

[00:01:11]This is going to be your ink.

[00:01:14]This is the messiest Tik Tok I've ever done in my entire life. Okay, so you're going to have some lemon juice. Can you see that? I'm going to go put some water in and you need to dilute it. You don't want it super super strong.

[00:01:24]Here's what we're going to do. We're going to take the juice and we're going to write a word on here.

[00:01:33]I'm going to show you how you make it invisible and then you bring it back to life, baby. I feel like Bill Nye right now.

[00:01:40]Now I got to wait for it to dry.

[00:01:43]Imagine this doesn't work and I do all of this for nothing. You should be asking yourself what the heck does all of this have to do with the Dunning-Kruger effect? And I should tell you that we got to talk about another story first. Hold your horses. So, in 1995, under this premise, the invisibility of lemon, a guy named MacArthur Wheeler, decided to rob not one but two banks in Pittsburgh. And he didn't choose to wear a mask to cover his face. He thought if he rubbed lemon all over his face, he was going to create an invisibility cloak. And he tested his theory, but when he sprayed it on himself, now he did get some lemon in his eyes, so his eyes were closed. He took a picture with a Polaroid camera cuz it was that long ago. When he took a picture, it wasn't directed at his face, it was directed at the ceiling. So, it looked like he was absolutely invisible. He robbed bank A, bank B. He got home, put his feet up on the desk uh at home. Bang, bang, bang.

[00:02:39]Knock at the door. The police are there.

[00:02:41]He's like, "How did you catch me?" He's like, "Guy, we could see you on the videotape." And he's like, "What do you mean you could see me? I wore the juice."

[00:02:49]Now, I know you've been waiting a while, but here's where the psychological test of the Dunning-Kruger effect actually takes place. Are you ready? You might want to get that pen.

[00:02:59]I'm going to sum up, and then I'm going to explain it deeper. The cognitive skills required to perform a task are the same cognitive skills required to actually evaluate one's performance.

[00:03:12]Step one, an individual makes incorrect conclusions and then subsequent bad choices that back up their incorrect conclusion. Step two, their lack of skill prevents them from realizing and recognizing their mistake.

[00:03:28]So, incompetent individuals suffer a dual burden.

[00:03:32]So, this type of cognitive bias is where people with limited knowledge or limited competence grossly overestimate their ability and their awareness in a particular subject matter.

[00:03:46]Simply put, they overestimate their skill because they don't know enough to question it. So, the Dunning-Kruger experiment actually took a bunch of people and they assessed their grammar, humor, and logical cognitive abilities.

[00:04:01]The participants in the lowest quarter of the results, meaning they did the worst, thought they did the best, and the individuals who did the best on this test assumed they did the worst.

[00:04:14]The bottom line being that the people that don't have the ability don't know how to question when they're not getting right the right answer. They just assume they're good. And the people in the high percentiles of understanding things and having a knowledge base are constantly reading the question and even though it seems seems simple, they're second-guessing everything because intelligent people realize that they don't know as much as they think they should. Have you ever heard the cliché ignorance is bliss? This is why. And the only way to really overcome this, if you have an idea, is to seek out individuals that don't agree with you. Seek out objective individuals that are going to challenge what you think and how you think. But somebody with a relatively low knowledge base doesn't even know to do that much. Your peers or your little echo chamber tends to just reaffirm your bias, so you're never actually getting challenged.

[00:05:09]>> It's right.

[00:05:11]>> Are you ready for the science? Stand by and be ready to be amazed.

[00:05:16]Just keep watching.

[00:05:20]Stand by.

[00:05:22]Guys, this is so cool. Requires more heat than I anticipated.

[00:05:28]Are you ready?

[00:05:29]All right, I want you to remember one thing. Actually, two things. Can you remember two things? Maybe you should write it down. Number one, all that we know is that we know nothing at all.

[00:05:40]And number two, don't forget to vote.