The least skilled performers show the largest overestimation of their own ability.

Evidence

In one revealing finding, Dunning and Kruger asked forty-five intelligent undergraduates to take a twenty-item logic test from an LSAT preparation guide. As anyone familiar with the LSAT knows, these are not easy tests. Subjects were asked not only to complete the questions but to rate how they thought they had done and how this would compare to others. What researchers found was that on average students placed themselves in the 66th percentile. It is noteworthy that the students tended not to overestimate how they had done; they correctly assessed how many questions they had gotten right or wrong. Where things got out of whack was in their judgment of whether this was “above average.” And in fact, the most stunning results came from those students whose performance was at the very bottom. “Although these individuals scored at the 12th percentile on average, they nevertheless believed that their general logical ability fell at the 68th percentile.” Perhaps this is the most shocking thing about the Dunning–Kruger result: the greatest inflation in one’s assessment of one’s own ability comes from the lowest performers. — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 113

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s broader interest in how competence and self-assessment distort judgment, and specifically the central mechanics of denial/deception that runs through the whole post-truth thread.