Dunning & Kruger Explain the World
It was only recently that I learned of a study conducted in 1999 by two psychologists at Cornell University, David Dunning and Justin Kruger, that sheds light on how it is that half the people in America are proud to call themselves Democrats.
It was only recently that I learned of a study conducted in 1999 by two psychologists at Cornell University, David Dunning and Justin Kruger, that sheds light on how it is that half the people in America are proud to call themselves Democrats.
It all began with a would-be bank robber named MacArthur Wheeler, although with a name like that, you’d expect him to own a bank. In any case, Mr. Wheeler had convinced himself that if he smeared lemon juice on his face, he could get away with the crime without even wearing a mask. It seems that he had convinced himself that because lemon juice is used as invisible ink, at least in spy novels, the bank’s cameras would not be able to record his image.
In fact, when the cops arrested him, he refused to believe they had proof until they showed him the surveillance tape.
That led Dunning and Kruger to wonder just how widespread this ability to con ourselves extended. They began to test groups of college students, and they kept finding that the gap between reality and self-perception could best be measured in light years.
They found time and again that stupid people not only did badly on written exams of all kinds, but even on driving tests, and yet were convinced they had aced them. In fact, they often assumed they had done better than everyone else.
But the psychologists also found that the students who did well tended to believe that others had probably done as well or perhaps even better, their assumption being that the things that came easily to them also came easily to most people.
The doctors explained that those with low ability usually suffer from an internal illusion of superiority, whereas those with high ability often have external misperceptions of others.
As Dunning and Kruger explain the disconnect stupid people have about themselves: “The skills you need to produce a correct answer on a test are exactly the skills you need to recognize what a right answer is.”
I was talking with a lady friend who admitted she would probably go down with the plane rather than risk parachuting out of it. I said I might not go that far, but that, unlike my friend and computer tech, Steve Maikoski, who not only made hundreds of jumps, but was even a member of a parachuting team, only flaming engines would ever make me even consider jumping out of an airplane in flight.
As I explained: “I don’t ever want to do anything where success is determined by the fact you didn’t manage to kill yourself. In short, one man’s hobby is another man’s "Are you crazy out of your mind?!”
As you all know, I often fantasize myself as the President, at least to the extent that anyone could ever picture the President wearing tennis shorts and Hawaiian shirts. But, the other day, I considered being the Pope. Believe me, that wasn’t easy. After all, if there’s one thing I like less than wearing a suit and tie, it’s being decked out in a triregnum, a Papal ferula, a Pallium over a chasuble, a sub-cinctorium, a falda, a mantum and, of course, a maniple, without which no self-respecting pope would ever venture outside the Vatican.
The demanding dress code aside, another drawback is that I’m not a Catholic. But, then, there are times I find myself wondering if Francis, the Communist from Argentina is.
Be that as it may, if the time ever came that the College of Cardinals decided to take a flyer on a Jew, my first order of business would be to call for another Crusade. When you see the way that Christians are treated in Muslim countries, I would feel fully justified. What’s more, I’d like to think that going forward, Catholic theologians would refer to me as Pope Burt, Defender of the Faith.
I understand diet is often a matter of geography, that cows are sacred in some peculiar places, the entre in others; that insects are pests in some countries, protein in others. But the same is true of height. Back in 1969, when I was in Japan, I visited a kabuki theater. When the show was over, I, who was 5-ft-7 at the time, and a thousand Japanese exited the joint, and I found I could see over most of their heads.
But, height is also, I’ve discovered to my chagrin, a matter of age. Over the past 48 years, I suspect the average Japanese has grown an inch or two, whereas I am now, thanks to the practical joker known as gravity, short enough to join a troupe of midget clowns if such troupes still existed in these politically correct times.
America recently went into national mourning over the passing of Don Rickles, who owed his success not to ever having said anything particularly funny, but by convincing people that he only half-meant the insults he hurled at celebrities. I, on the other hand, always thought that Joan Rivers was much funnier.
I mean, maybe Frank Sinatra was a hockey puck, but most of us didn’t know the guy. But when Joan Rivers said she hated housework because “You make the beds, you wash the dishes, and six months later, you have to start all over again,” I suspect it resonated with millions.
One of the mysteries that has lingered with me through the decades involves tipping. I mean, who is it that first determined who received tips?
Possessing a sufficiently quirky imagination, you might be able to picture a bunch of monks in a cellar or a collection of Talmudic scholars in a cave kicking the question back and forth, arguing late into the night over why waiters and waitresses on the ground should get them, but airline stewards and stewardesses, otherwise known as the waiters and waitresses of the sky, should not.
And how is it fair that waiters in upscale restaurants get their 15% of a steak or lobster dinner, but those working in coffee shops delivering tuna fish sandwiches or burgers get a mere pittance of that amount. I know the argument is that those in the cheaper places have a bigger turnover and therefore make it up in volume, but some expensive joints do a great business and some diners can barely keep their doors open.
How has it been decided that barbers and beauticians, even those who own their shops and can therefore set the price for their services, get tips, but not supermarket clerks or bank tellers?
Why do we tip mailmen at Christmas, but not the trash collectors? After all, the first group delivers little more than bills and junk mail. It’s the other guys who provide a genuine service by carting the crap away.
But the most bizarre aspect of all is the way that so many people even tip politicians. Hardly a day goes by that the mailman doesn’t dump five or six pleas for money from congressmen and senators on me, urging that I bust open my little piggy bank and send them the contents, although it is already my tax dollars that are paying their over-inflated salaries and the salaries of their flunkies and girlfriends.
The nerve of some people. I mean, it’s not as if they’re delivering four or five delightfully informative articles every single week, rain or shine, through good times and bad, even on weekends.
And it’s not like any of them, thanks to gravity, are apparently shrinking into oblivion and, lest I forget, are presently suffering from a nasty case of the sniffles!
