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Christopher J. Stehno
Christopher J. Stehno

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Duning-Kruger Effect

A friend of mine shared this video with me today - hopefully he was not hinting at something:

The Dunning-Kruger Effect is something I have always called "Not knowing what you don't know". It's a general lack of understanding for the scope of a field due to inexperience. As you learn more about a field, your understanding of the scope increases and you quickly realize that you don't know as much of it as you think you do - you have only seen the tip of the iceberg.

The downside is that this lack of understanding leads you to a false confidence, which may stunt further learning of the topic.

I have seen this quite often when interviewing candidates over the years. I can also remember experiencing some of those a-ha moments when I realized that there was a lot more to what I was learning at the time.

Now, I just try to assume that "I know nothing."

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