Thursday, March 27, 2008

The W Bush Effect

A study, back from 2000, reported by the SF Chronicle about what we have now come to know as the dreaded "W Bush Effect":

Incompetent People Really Have No Clue, Studies Find: "There are many incompetent people in the world. Dr. David A. Dunning is haunted by the fear that he might be one of them. Dunning, a professor of psychology at Cornell, worries about this because, according to his research, most incompetent people do not know that they are incompetent. On the contrary. People who do things badly, Dunning has found in studies conducted with a graduate student, Justin Kruger, are usually supremely confident of their abilities -- more confident, in fact, than people who do things well."

Too bad that this study wasn't more widely disseminated in 2000. Now we know (or, actually, most people still don't and never will).

h/t McArdle

4 comments:

shanna said...

Having taken a course of his (Psychology and the Law), I can assure you that he is not incompetent. Goofy, maybe, but there's a distinction.

JC said...

You took a college course taught by George W. Bush? Poor you. I can imagine it was easy to get in, impossible to get out of, and cost more at the end than was promised.

ptjew said...

I think she means she took a class with Dr Dunning (the one who wrote the study).

Yes moving to A squared not Ypsitucky. Your post was very competent.

Where I come from you know you are in the center of town by the thickness, size and density of the impeach Bush now signs. Proudly there are none on all 2 1/2 blocks of my street.

Are you one of those people who was upset with Israel for taking Jerusalem back from the Arabs in 1967?

JC said...

"I think she means she took a class with Dr Dunning (the one who wrote the study)."

Yeah? Well that makes my reply to her a lot less funny.

"Your post was very competent."

Thanks

"Are you one of those people who was upset with Israel for taking Jerusalem back from the Arabs in 1967?"

Me? [Much laughter] I haven't written about Israel (or anything else) in a while, but no, I am a proud Likudnik. However, the same sagacity which makes me right-wing in Israeli politics makes me think that George W. Bush is a colossal failure. And a moron.