Are Incompetent People Able to Recognize Their Incompetence?

According to full psychology research, incompetent people are unable to recognize their own incompetence. In other words, they have no idea they are incompetent. To put it bluntly, inept people have no idea they are failing in life.

Their incompetence is funny, but they are not making fun of themselves. They are actually clueless about how unskilled and untalented they are. They are basically disconnected from reality.

They live in their own perfect world where they are the most capable, talented, and skilled people.

David Dunning, a renowned psychologist at Cornell University has spent a decade accumulating the perfect results of his research. He demonstrated that for humans it is ‘’intrinsically difficult to realize what they don’t know’’.

Whether they are incompetent of logical reasoning, humor, emotional intelligence, or playing chess, they simply believe they are better than anyone else. Or, they often believe they are above average.

In their mind, these people believe they don’t make mistakes.

The Dunning-Kruger Effect

There is always that one person who strongly believes they are gifted and talented at something while in reality, they are terrible at it. This is the Dunning-Kruger Effect.

In one article published in the Journal of Social & Personality Psychology, psychologists Justin Kruger and David Dunning show that the most incompetent people believe they are the best. They honestly believe they are the most competent people of all.

This phenomenon is quite easy to understand. Unskilled people can’t or lack the ability to evaluate their own skills.

While the skilled people, when they want to evaluate themselves on a particular task, they always evaluate their competence and incompetence. Always focusing on their incompetence. Also, let’s say you know someone who is trying really hard to be funny.

But, that exact person has no idea what is funny and what will make other people laugh. But, to be able to judge your own competence or incompetence, you need to have metacognitive skills.

This is a skill that allows you to examine and evaluate your own thoughts. To achieve this, you have to relinquish your egocentric perspective and evaluate yourself from the outside. You must jump out of your own skin and think about what you are saying.

Are you hurting the people around you when you are talking? Have you hurt anyone? Simply objectively evaluate yourself. This way you will be able to measure your performance accurately.

Can We Truly Judge Our Own Incompetence?

It is difficult for everyone to learn to judge their own incompetence or competence. Those who don’t have the skill simply can’t do anything about it.

According to one particular study, Kruger and Dunning found out that the students who were least competent had increased logical reasoning.

So, if you think you will immediately jump into a conversation is important that you think about what you are saying. Right now it is crucial that you don’t forget to think about other people. Try not to hurt them or insult them in any way.

If you can’t do it alone, it is always alright to ask for help.