“The Dumb Get Confident While The Intelligent Get Doubtful”
"We is so Smart. SMRT."
You ever hear of the “Dunning-Kruger effect?”
I hadn’t either until I got an email from my buddy Ben last week pointing me towards this article . . .
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/stories/2010/2893602.htm
(You’ll have to hit the “show transcript” button to
read it.)
The short version of Dunning Kruger is that “dumb” or uninformed people tend to hold drastically inflated opinions of how “right” they are about something . . .
(“2+2 = 5 and I will FIGHT YOU TO DEATH if you disagree with me!”
While “smart” or more educated people tend to hold drastically DEFLATED
opinions of what they know.
(“I know enough to know I don’t know anything.”)
From the article . . .
And here’s the kicker; across every test, the students at the bottom end of the bell curve held inflated opinions of their own talents, hugely inflated. In one test of logical reasoning, the lowest quartile of students estimated that their skills would put them above more than 60% of their peers when in fact they had beaten out just 12%. To put that misjudgement in perspective, it’s like guessing that this piece of music [music for 5 seconds] lasted nearly half a minute.
Even more surprisingly, the Dunning-Kruger effect leads high achievers to doubt themselves, because on the other end of the bell curve the talented students consistently underestimated their performance. Again to the test of logic; those topping the class felt that they were only just beating out three-quarters of their classmates, whereas in reality they had out-performed almost 90% of them.
The verdict was in; idiots get confident while the smart get modest, an idea that was around long before Dunning and Kruger’s day. Bertrand Russell once said, ‘In the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.’ From his essay ‘The Triumph of Stupidity’, published in 1933.
For me, reading this transcript (and checking out the wikipedia page on the topic) was a big aha since it explained a lot of the CRAZINESS (on both sides of the fence) that stands-in for political debate in this
country.
But it also made my mind go CRAZY with the implications for marketing and how to tune messages depending on the level of sophistication of your market.
(It also explains why unethical marketers can get away with selling “magic wands” and other such BS with impunity.)
Just thought I’d share. =-)
Comments
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Karen Dimmick June 7th
Ummm… That explains a lot! So how do you spot the ‘bottom’ marketers so you don’t buy into their over-confidence and how do you spot the ‘top’ if they’re doubting whether they’re good themselves?
Is there a sweet spot where you finally get over the doubt too? – I figure there must be or the very top marketers wouldn’t be able to market themselves…
Joe Shirley June 7th
Nice, Chris. One of the most useful outcomes of the study is the discovery that a little education goes a long way. When you are able to show people just how little they know, they suddenly get a lot more realistic.
It helps explain why the idea of giving away good, free content is an excellent sales strategy for coaching, expert advice, and info products. By giving people content that let’s them get their feet wet, they start comprehending just how much they *don’t* know. So they’re far more willing to pay (and pay more) for your expertise than they were before you shared your knowledge.
(Kind of like you’re doing here on your blog. Great posts!)
One response to your “implications for marketing and how to tune messages depending on the level of sophistication of your market…” Everybody, no matter what their level of sophistication, has one or more areas where they are overconfident. One good marketing strategy is to identify those, hold up the mirror, and offer to ease their sudden doubt.
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