The Bias of being Skilled
“Loud and confident”
Isn’t that what we all are always told to be…
while performing any activity… while answering anything… or maybe just before the annual debate competition in school…
Taking about confidence, have you ever thought why more than 82% of students confidently believe their IQ to be above average, or nearly 90% people believe they can drive better than most of the population?
Paradoxical? Maybe…
Overconfidence? Maybe…
Ahh… too much confusion for now ??
Okay, lets take a pause and move to a debate happening between Akash, Bhavna and Chacha over finding the value of “x+y” accurately, and you have to support one of them.
Wait...
Lets bring in some twist!
If the one you vote/support wins, you would be getting half the debate prize money.
Okay, debate time...
So… to us as an audience member, Akash is the one confident enough to support.
Chacha is surely thinking over the complexities.
But hey! wouldn’t we place our bets on Akash’s clarity?
Don’t worry, nearly 68% people with you are on the same boat, supporting Akash’s accuracy & confidence
And… This is where, we begin branching out a bias ??
The "Know-it-all" Phase
We all believe we are smarter and more capable than we actually are...
We assume what comes easily to us also comes easily to everyone else, which in simple terms can be called a cognitive bias.
A bias, that may lead us to make less informed decisions over opportunities or careers we pursue, and vice versa.
Thats pretty much what we’ve all experienced in our daily lives.
How?
Okay, let me tell you my maggi story
I learnt how to prepare maggi (the tasty one, of course!) when I was… umm 17.
"Cooking is so easy… afterall its all just the cooking methods we need to understand, right?" - I thought
Well, thats when I reached the peak of Mount Stupid! (For now, consider it to be my most stupid phase)
So, scaling my confidence levels during a ‘tasty’ maggi preparation competition , took me somewhere here…
Fine
Now 1-2 years down the lane, onto learning more recipes should have completely grown my confidence, right?
Well, thats where the catch is…
If you’d observe close enough, I just transferred from being Akash to being Bhavna. (more experienced, yet lacking confidence)
The Realisation Phase
Entering into depths of our learning, we begin realising that we actually don’t know how accurate we were earlier.
This ultimately reduces our confidence!
Upon realising the complexities involved, we never get to reach Mount Stupid ever again, in out learning curve…
Well, thats what makes us wise!
The Dunning-Kruger Effect is this psychological bias, illustrating that those who are overconfident in their ability may not actually be the top performers, whereas those who believe they are average, or even slightly below, often demonstrate great skill!
Okay…
All these are fine, but how can we avoid this bias - something we, ourselves are not completely aware of… while being overconfident?
The answer is quite simple…
Simply knowing about the bias helps to mitigate its effects.
Thinking you’re bad at cooking food likely puts you in the right place, because it means you have enough insight to recognize your own shortcomings.
Afterall, whats wrong in taking a step back and seeking input from others, observing & learning from people of our fields!
Afterall, what’s wrong in being “wise & confident”... Right?
Distorted Reality?
What if you wake up someday and realise that all of this psychological bias turned out to be completely FAKE! ?
Well... lets keep this story for the next time ??