Dunning-Kruger Effect: A Simple System-Based Explanation

Authors

Griselda Acosta, The University of Texas at El PasoFollow
Eric Smith, The University of Texas at El PasoFollow

Publication Date

7-2019

Comments

Technical Report: UTEP-CS-19-68

Abstract

In their 1999 paper, psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger showed that, in general, experts not only provide better estimates of different situations, but they also provide a better estimates of the accuracy of their estimates. Which this phenomenon has been confirmed by many follow-up experiments, it remains largely unexplained. In this paper, we provide a simple system-based qualitative explanation for the Dunning-Kruger effect.