full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Robin Kramer: Are you really as good at something as you think?

Unscramble the Blue Letters


Perhaps you think this applies to other people and that you, yourself, wouldn't make this sort of mistake. So let's try a quick experiment. I want you to think about how you would rate yourself in terms of your driving ability. Would you rate yourself as below aeargve, average or perhaps even above average? So most people rate themselves as above average, which, of course, is mathematically impossible, and something that we call the "better than average" effect. This is just one of a number of cnivgtioe biases that we see when people jduge their own abilities.

footnote

Today, I'm going to focus on a realetd bias, the Dunning-Kruger effect. So back in 1999, two psychologists at Cornell University, Dunning and Kruger, described the mistakes people make when estimating their own abilities. So if we take a sample of people and we didive them into four groups based on their scores on a test, and oredr those groups from lowest to highest. If we plot those scores on a graph along with their self-estimates, so how well they thought they did on the test, this is the pretatn that we see. So the red line is a steep slope retpreesnnig their actual scores. As it must be, since we ordered the groups based on their seorcs in the first place. Now what's interesting is the blue shallower line. This represents their self-estimates. So, how good they thuohgt they did on the test. Now the Dunning-Kruger effect describes how the weakest pomrrrfees significantly overestimate their performance, shown here in the green oval. The explanation for this, according to Dunning and Kruger, is that insight and ability rely on the same thing. So if I'm poor at a task, I also lack the metacognitive ingshit to accurately assess my ability.

Open Cloze


Perhaps you think this applies to other people and that you, yourself, wouldn't make this sort of mistake. So let's try a quick experiment. I want you to think about how you would rate yourself in terms of your driving ability. Would you rate yourself as below _______, average or perhaps even above average? So most people rate themselves as above average, which, of course, is mathematically impossible, and something that we call the "better than average" effect. This is just one of a number of _________ biases that we see when people _____ their own abilities.

footnote

Today, I'm going to focus on a _______ bias, the Dunning-Kruger effect. So back in 1999, two psychologists at Cornell University, Dunning and Kruger, described the mistakes people make when estimating their own abilities. So if we take a sample of people and we ______ them into four groups based on their scores on a test, and _____ those groups from lowest to highest. If we plot those scores on a graph along with their self-estimates, so how well they thought they did on the test, this is the _______ that we see. So the red line is a steep slope ____________ their actual scores. As it must be, since we ordered the groups based on their ______ in the first place. Now what's interesting is the blue shallower line. This represents their self-estimates. So, how good they _______ they did on the test. Now the Dunning-Kruger effect describes how the weakest __________ significantly overestimate their performance, shown here in the green oval. The explanation for this, according to Dunning and Kruger, is that insight and ability rely on the same thing. So if I'm poor at a task, I also lack the metacognitive _______ to accurately assess my ability.

Solution


  1. performers
  2. related
  3. insight
  4. judge
  5. average
  6. cognitive
  7. thought
  8. order
  9. divide
  10. scores
  11. pattern
  12. representing

Original Text


Perhaps you think this applies to other people and that you, yourself, wouldn't make this sort of mistake. So let's try a quick experiment. I want you to think about how you would rate yourself in terms of your driving ability. Would you rate yourself as below average, average or perhaps even above average? So most people rate themselves as above average, which, of course, is mathematically impossible, and something that we call the "better than average" effect. This is just one of a number of cognitive biases that we see when people judge their own abilities.

footnote

Today, I'm going to focus on a related bias, the Dunning-Kruger effect. So back in 1999, two psychologists at Cornell University, Dunning and Kruger, described the mistakes people make when estimating their own abilities. So if we take a sample of people and we divide them into four groups based on their scores on a test, and order those groups from lowest to highest. If we plot those scores on a graph along with their self-estimates, so how well they thought they did on the test, this is the pattern that we see. So the red line is a steep slope representing their actual scores. As it must be, since we ordered the groups based on their scores in the first place. Now what's interesting is the blue shallower line. This represents their self-estimates. So, how good they thought they did on the test. Now the Dunning-Kruger effect describes how the weakest performers significantly overestimate their performance, shown here in the green oval. The explanation for this, according to Dunning and Kruger, is that insight and ability rely on the same thing. So if I'm poor at a task, I also lack the metacognitive insight to accurately assess my ability.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
weakest performers 5
metacognitive insight 4
good metacognitive 3
incorrect responses 3
groups based 2
tall people 2
shortest people 2
tallest people 2
id images 2
passport officers 2
asked people 2
correct responses 2
poor insight 2
insight depends 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
good metacognitive insight 2

Important Words


  1. abilities
  2. ability
  3. accurately
  4. actual
  5. applies
  6. assess
  7. average
  8. based
  9. bias
  10. biases
  11. blue
  12. call
  13. cognitive
  14. cornell
  15. describes
  16. divide
  17. driving
  18. dunning
  19. effect
  20. estimating
  21. experiment
  22. explanation
  23. focus
  24. footnote
  25. good
  26. graph
  27. green
  28. groups
  29. highest
  30. impossible
  31. insight
  32. interesting
  33. judge
  34. kruger
  35. lack
  36. line
  37. lowest
  38. mathematically
  39. metacognitive
  40. mistake
  41. mistakes
  42. number
  43. order
  44. ordered
  45. oval
  46. overestimate
  47. pattern
  48. people
  49. performance
  50. performers
  51. place
  52. plot
  53. poor
  54. psychologists
  55. quick
  56. rate
  57. red
  58. related
  59. rely
  60. representing
  61. represents
  62. sample
  63. scores
  64. shallower
  65. shown
  66. significantly
  67. slope
  68. sort
  69. steep
  70. task
  71. terms
  72. test
  73. thought
  74. today
  75. university
  76. weakest