The bookmaker business is built on a mistake of thinking: people believe in their sports knowledge, lose, write off everything as an unfortunate coincidence, and continue to make predictions, ignoring the experience gained.
A similar situation occurs in various fields and is associated with the manifestation of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Let’s figure out what it is and how not to fall under its influence. Let’s take the profession of a programmer as an example, but the recommendations are suitable for all specialties.
What is it
The Dunning-Kruger effect is when an incompetent person behaves like an expert, and a competent person, on the contrary, lacks knowledge:
The first extreme is that the person has taken a weeklong HTML course and is applying for a full-time programmer job at Google.
The second extreme is that a person has been preparing for an interview at Google for several years, worked in similar positions, learned English and does not apply for a vacancy due to a feeling of lack of qualifications.
Both of these options interfere with a career: in the first case, the programmer will not pass the interview due to incompetence, and in the second, due to perfectionism.
To overcome the extremes, it is important to find the right balance between self-confidence and qualification on the Dunning-Kruger curve:
“Peak of stupidity” (pink segment) – a person thinks that he knows everything.
“Valley of Despair” (red line) – a person realizes that he knows nothing.
“Slope of enlightenment” (yellow line) – a person gradually accumulates enough knowledge to apply it in practice.
“Stability plateau” (green segment) – a person turns into a qualified IT specialist and is confident in his knowledge.
In our example, the first programmer has reached the “Peak of Stupidity”, and the second is stuck on the “Slope of Enlightenment”. Next, let’s figure out what to do with it.