Helpful
thought: medical lab technicians don't know if they have poor skills. |
![]() |
||
How
dangerous is a little knowledge?
You probably know you'd make a butter-fingered heart surgeon. But aren't your social abilities above average? Didn't you do, well, pretty nicely, on that test last week? Aren't you more skilled than your colleagues? And each time, the most inaccurate estimates came from the most inept people. The biggest idiots, in other words, have a great deal of self-esteem, just as the self-help treatises in popular magazines would have it. "In the United States, you are supposed have high self esteem, supposed to be in control, it's deemed pathological if that's not the self-image you have," says Dunning. But he thinks exaggerating abilities may be harmful or helpful, depending on the situation. "Everybody is wildly overoptimistic about their ability to pull off a successful marriage. Most marriages fail, but people don't say, 'Yeah, I'm going to make a go of it, but it probably won't work.'" Because of unbridled optimism, "a lot of people get married, and there are demonstrable benefits to that." But overestimating your abilities can be dangerous. A recent study of medical lab technicians found the familiar pattern of inaccuracy on the ability to solve problems, and knowledge of laboratory tests and medical lingo. "In all three areas of objective testing, those employees in the bottom percentiles judged their performance as average or even above average compared with coworkers," the researchers wrote (see "Assessing..." in the bibliography). To Dunning, it just proves the old adage: A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. "It suggests that as you gain experience, you gain explanatory power, you come up with stories that explain events in the world." Medical
menace? It reminds us of the story of "Batesian" mimicry -- the viceroy butterflies that supposedly evolved to resemble toxic monarchs. Dunning says he was surprised anybody bothered checking whether viceroy butterflies might be toxic. "Once something is explained, you don't feel the need to test it anymore. If you have a story, it's already settled, why bother testing it?" Mythical bibliography? No, way. It's real. |
|||
![]() ![]() |
|||
![]() |
There
are 1 2 3
4 5 6 pages in this feature.
Bibliography | Credits | Feedback | Search |