The Dunning Kruger Effect

Cognitive behavioral psychology pertains to how someone interprets feelings and how he or she reacts to this interpretation. Cognition indicates how one thinks and this interacts with emotion and behavior. In other words, an activating event takes place and provokes an assumption which leads to resulting consequences that are normally negative. In the movie Inside Out, Riley leads a happy life in Minnesota which is turned upside-down when her family moves to San Francisco. The stress of the move causes a major disruption in Riley’s life and emotions. Using cognitive behavioral psychology, Riley’s thoughts can be analyzed through the ABC technique; this technique begins with A (activating event), then B (belief), which results in C (consequence). Under Riley’s circumstances, the stress she experiences causes her beliefs to be mostly negative, which therefore leads to poor consequences.

And so, according to David Dunning, those with intellectual deficits are often “blessed with an inappropriate confidence, buoyed by something that feels to them like

Have you ever wanted to go back in time to relive something? Well, some would go back to fix a mistake they made. I would go back to stop me from getting caught. One night last thanksgiving break I was arrested for being under the influence. Before all this happened, I was already in lots of trouble. My parents said that I was going to have to start paying for my military school. I knew that the price would be all the money left in my bank. So, I decided to withdraw $350 from my bank. My plan was to cash all my money so my parents couldn’t take my money. Thanksgiving was coming and all my friends were going to hang out up in Denver and I wanted to go. I knew that my parents wouldn’t let me go. I took matters into my own hands and used my money

Substantial burden to individuals and communities are outcomes of the most occurring disorder within the United States, anxiety disorder. Even though effective treatments for anxiety disorders have been developed, there has been extensively less focus on intervention techniques directed at the betterment regarding anxiety-related risks and care factors (Keough & Schmidt, 2012). Advances in prevention programs for anxiety and its disorders are presently in its early stage of development. On July 11, 2014, a study was conducted to test an adaptation of a Cognitive Bias Modification program to minimize anxiousness predisposition. It evaluated the causal relationships between rendering preconception of physiological cues, anxiety sensitivity,

A cognitive bias in which people will have the tendency to believe that a statement, idea, or information is accurate if it is either positive, meaningful, or if it’s personally addressed to them. Many people believe in biorhythms, horoscopes iridology, cold reading, and tarot cards because they appear to have the solution to their problems which is meaningful. In addition, many mediums and palm readers depend on subjective validation because it is easy to convince others that they are linked to unrelated events. (Pages 120, 122-123).

In the podcast titled Cognitive Dissonance (2011), Dr. Carol Tavris, the author of Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts, discusses the relationship between psychology and neuroscience, in addition to discussing cognitive dissonance. As Dr. Tavris explains, cognitive dissonance theory is the mental discomfort we feel whenever two ideas are conflicted with one another, causing discomfort that we attempt to reduce cognitively (Campbell & Tavris, 2011). Moreover, dissonance can increase dependent upon, how important the decision is, how strongly the dissonant thoughts conflict, and our ability to rationalize and justify the conflict (Cognitive dissonance, 2016). As a future psychologist,

David Dunning’s mastery of the art of persuasive writing is clear in his essay “We Are All Confident Idiots.” He proposes that wisdom is inherently different from knowledge, and the more we think we know, the less we actually do. His argument is clear and driven, and backed up with examples and insurmountable evidence. His use of diction and tone amount to a sophisticated and reliable case for his claim: those with the most confidence in their ability possess the least actual skill.

Confirmation bias is a tendency of people to prefer information that reinforces a thought or believe that they have. People demonstrate this bias when they retain information selectively, or when they interpret it in a biased way. The effect is stronger for emotional issues and for deeply rooted beliefs. (Science Daily)

Confirmation Bias: only explore information that supports our ideas Hindsight Bias: reporting untruthfully that we projected an outcome Availability Heuristic: calculating possibilities grounded on ease of recall Base-Rate Fallacy: disregarding information about universal principles Representativeness Heuristic: making decisions grounded on stereotypes

I went to a college party and got wasted I got pulled over and was taken to jail for driving under the influence. I was scared of what might happen to me in jail. I had never been in trouble and I did not want to worry my parents by bailing me out. I stayed in jail overnight until they released me with the promise to appear to court at a later date. When I got home I got in the shower and tried to clean the fifth of jail off me but it was not that easy. When I got release they took my driver license and handed me a paper with instruction to get them back. I was so embarrassed from getting arrested i tried to keep it a secret. I was doing a good job of hiding my arrest until I needed to rent a car for my sister. I always rented cars for her since we lived in the same city and she was under the rental car age limit. I had to break the bad news that I did not have a license and i'm fighting a dui class. She started crying and asking was i ok and if are parents knew.

I don't think so at ordinary times but sometimes when I have to decide something, I feel that I have a cognitive bias. I wonder about cognitive bias and I want to know more. So I picked this for my topic. First, I found the definition of cognitive bias. On my way, I found a video about cognitive bias. The content is as follows.

The main points of Dwerks article was that many people are pressured to be “smart”. Students often question their intelligence based by a fixed mindset. A fix mindset is comparing someone who you think has more intellect then yourself because people often confuse having a talent/gift instead of working hard to achieve that goal. Self esteem has a lot to do when it comes to accomplishing your goal. When students don't understand a problem or when it becomes difficult they automatically shut down and perceive themselves as being dumb. Brainology changes that outlook by having a growth mindset instead of putting yourself down, they still want you to challenge yourself. Its not about who is more smart its about who puts the most effort in their

The self fulfilling prophecy / perceptual bias, affects me personally in many ways. When meeting new people, everyone (including myself) has pre-conceived notations about a persons behavior, personality, and way of life solely based on the way they look. These observations can lead us to treat the person different based on these ideas about them that we formed before even meeting them. This is where the self fulfilling prophecy steps in. If these observations turn out to be true. It can lead one to believe they were “right” about that persons culture. Often times we will then begin to generalize people of that group, believing they all act like the one example we experienced.

Understanding how our brain works can help us understand why all individuals have unconscious biases. Blair (2007) gave an example of the elephant and the blind man story where six blind people, who have never seen an elephant, had different description of an elephant (pillar, rope, thick branch of a tree, big hand fan, huge wall, solid pipe) based on what they touched. On the one hand, they were all right but, on the other, they were all wrong as they just had the chunks of the bigger picture. This gives us an insight of what humans are like and how they see the world based on the lens of their experience.

The study was conducted at Belmont University. The participants are from the introduction to psychology classes on campus. They were granted course credit in return for participating in the study. The age range is approximately 18 to 24, the average being blank #. There were blank # of females, and blank # of males. The study is confidential, everything is anonymous, and their participation was voluntary.