Ever since I was a kid, I listened to my mom and dad about a lot of things. They told me things like “showering at night causes death” and “every grain of rice you don’t eat is a strand of hair that you lose.” These terrified me, and I listened to them until I was about 10 or so. Me nor my parents knew these were lies; my parents genuinely thought they were cold, hard facts. And so, when I researched about these and challenged them, they discredited the research and said that they were right. Keep in mind, my parents were new to the States, and had gained a majority of these “facts” from facebook; yet they had the audacity to challenge these scientists. How? This effect is called the Dunning-Kruger effect, something that my 10th grade English teacher taught me. The Dunning-Kruger effect is where people with inadequate skills and competence believe that they are above average in terms of skills and competence. This process can only work if they are so incompetent they don’t know that they’re incompetent. In other words, Arrogance from Ignorance.

Research on the Dunning-Kruger effect occurred after a bank robber rubbed lemon juice on his face to hide from bank cameras. After this fact of him wearing Lemon juice came to light, a professor named David Dunning was curious. He posed the question, can someone be so incompetent that they don’t know that they’re incompetent? Professor Dunning and his Grad Student Justin Kruger came up with a hypothesis; when people are incompetent in something, they tend to make bad decisions. The other part is that their own incompetence doesn’t let them know they’ve made bad decisions. This is the first example of the Dunning Kruger effect, but there are about two more that I’ve learned in my 10th grade English class.

The play Othello tells the story of Othello and Iago, the general and his commander. In the play, Iago drives Othello mad by using sexual inferences toward Othello’s newlywed wife Desdemona. In the end, Othello kills Desdemona for her infidelity, then finds out she was pure and innocent all along. How did this happen? Othello’s incompetence and pride was the source of it. He elected Iago as his commander, so challenging his word would be like challenging his own actions; he simply could not do that. He was so incompetent that he did not bother to listen to anyone besides Iago, and his incompetence “protected” him from his mistake of picking Iago as his most trusted advisor. After all this incompetence from Othello, and this Trickery from Iago, Othello can only weep;”Whip me, you devils, From the possession of this heavenly sight! Blow me about in the winds, roast me in sulfur, Wash me in steep-down gulfs of liquid fire! O Desdemona! Dead, Desdemona! Dead! O, O!”

Another example of the Dunning Kruger effect would be the murder of Ahmaud Arbery. The case goes that Ahmaud Arbery was jogging through his neighborhood when he was spotted by 3 white men; these men decided that Arbery had to die. And so, their incompetence led them to hunt him down in a car with guns. They murdered him shortly after. The second part of their incompetence is that they genuinely believed that what they were doing was good and beneficial. They killed him because he looked at their house. These three men were so incompetent that not only did they make the horrible decision to take another human’s life, they also had the audacity to post it to social media, and to believe that what they were doing was right and justified.

The Dunning Kruger effect works wonders on the minds of idiots. Just like how adrenaline fuels an athlete’s performance, the Dunning Kruger effect fuels the ego of incompetents. It’s nice to not be incompetent in the first place, but if you at least know that you are, then it’s forgivable. You can’t start growing and changing unless you know that there is something about you that needs to be different; better. Avoid arrogance from ignorance by surrounding yourself with brutally honest people, who will call out your dumb mistakes and bad decisions. These people may seem malicious and mean-spirited, but in the end, they want to help you. You will grow to become the best version of yourself, after the vast majority of your mistakes are found, pointed out, and worked on. Also, don’t be arrogant, unless you want to look like an idiot to other people.