Why stupid people think they are smart ? Read this

 Are you smart ? Why some stupid people think they are smart ?

Lets understand this through a short story

Once there were 2 frogs in a well . One of them said to the other " let's go to the ocean . There is a lot of water as well as intresting fishes and crabs . We will make new friends and hang out together . It will be so fun ."  

The other frog said " how much water would that be ? Will it be half of this well ?" 

On this the first frog says , " oh no man , there is more water !" 

The other says , " still how much water ? If you fill this well , that much ? What will be more that that ?"

On this the first frog beats his head and leaves him there and goes away . 

Is there any person in your life who considers himself to be more intelligent that necessary ? but in reality it is completely opposite . Usually we all overestimate our skills at some point or the other . 

An American survey found that 88% of people think they are better than average drivers and 94% of people think that they are better than average lovers . But mathematically only 50% of people can be better than average . So according to this , there are about 38% such people in America , those who consider themselves to be better than average drivers and 44% people consider themselves to be better than average lovers . But in reality they are the worst than average . We always get to see it's example in the stock market . Many small experts always predict that such a stock will grow a lot in the next 7 days and you should buy ut now . Sometimes he will tell you that a stock is going to fall you should sell it . But if you look at the track record of even one of these experts . So you will understand that these experts are wrong more than half of the time . The truth is that if you decide to buy or sell stock by tossing a coin you will get better results that those experts 's predictions . 

On the other hand intelligent people do not consider themselves intelligent . They often suffer from imposter syndrome , they feel that they still have a lot to learn . For example WARREN BUFFETT . He never makes such predictions . He says that you have to invest at least 10 years in good companies , wheather the market goes up or down . We keep seeing such examples everywhere . 

But the question arises that why do stupid people overestimate themselves ?

And 

Why do intelligent people underestimate themselves ?

Knowledge can be divided into three categories 

1) THE KNOWN - These are the things that you know and you know that you know them . Just like you know that the Earth has one moon and you know this very well . If we take the example of a frog in the well , then the known means the water of the well in which the frog was swimming . 

2) THE KNOWN UNKNOWN - These are the things that you know that you don't know . Like when the moon was discovered , you would not know this and you know that you don't know this . 

In the first example , known - unknown is the part above the well , which is not filled with water . The frog can in the well can clearly see how empty the well is . 

3) THE UNKNOWN UNKNOWN - These are the things you don't know that you don't know . In reality , the list of unknown unknown knowledge is never ending . There are innumerable things in the world that you may not even have heard of its name . But you never think about these things . This is the ocean that the frog had never seen before . It spent its whole life in a well and it is impossible for it to imagine what will happen out of it . 

Even in a particular field this three level of knowledge exists . 

To understand this let's take an example of two people Sia and Tia . Sia is a writer for the last one month and she knows a little bit about writing and also due to lack of knowledge she doesn't know how many things he does not know . Due to less knowledge , Sia knows even less about his non -known knowledge , and she thinks she knows everything . She is unable to see her flaws so she feels that there is no flaw at all and she is perfect . On the other hand Tia has been writing for the last 3 yrs . She has published 2 books . Tia 's known - knowledge is also high and there is also more non - unknown knowledge because of which she knows how many things he does not know yet . Being more knowledgeable Tia is also knowing her flaws and shortcomings and because of this he feels that he does not know much . This phenomenon is called THE DUNNING KRUGER EFFECT . 

In 1998 , two scientists named Dunning and Kruger did a lot of studies . They took tests of many students and asked them , what do you think ? How was your performance ? In such situation those people who scored less marks told more of thier marks . Whereas their test went bad and they felt that the test was very difficult . That's why it must have been hard for everyone . So their marks should be better than others . On the other hand the poeple who got more marks , they underestimated themselves , their test went well so they felt this test must have been easy for everyone . That's why everyone must have got good marks . In suh situation , the should on top the question does not arise . 

Dunning and Kruger gave these graphs to understand this phenomenon . They noted that when the competence of a person is less then his confidence is very high . He has absolutely no knowledge about his flaws and shortcomings . He considers himself perfect . But as soon as people start increasing their knowledge and competence they realise that they do not know much . They can see their flaws clearly and because of this their confidence gets decreased . But when they keep educating themselves for a long time and keep practicing skills then their confidence starts increasing again . Because of the repeatedly getting success they start to believe that they really know more . But still they underestimate themselves to those people who do not have any knowledge about this field .

The Dunning Kruger effect applies to everyone in every field . 

If you have never touched a violin before no matter how hard you imagine it , it will actually come out harder than that . In other words you might find that learning the violin won't be that hard but the day you take 4 classes you will immediately realize that it is harder than your imagination .

So now you must be thinking what can we do to avoid the Dunning Kruger effect .

It's simple solution is to EDUCATE YOURSELF more !

It is not necessary that you should have knowledge of all the things around the world but never stop working on your knowledge and skills , atleast in your particular field . The more you read , the more the scope of your unknown knowledge will increase . Don't stop only on knowledge but keep on improving your skills too . 

So stop overestimating yourself this way and improve yourself with time . 

Happy Learnings 🙌