The Dunning-Kruger generation

It is a recklessness responsible for producing a generation who not only do not know, but – worse still – remain unaware of their own ignorance

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Josep Oton

Classical mythology presents Pygmalion as an emblematic figure. While occupying the throne of Cyprus, he was unable to find a suitable wife, for he sought a beauty and perfection that no woman could meet. Frustrated, he renounced marriage and devoted himself to sculpture as a way of compensating for his lack of a partner. In the end, he created a statue so beautiful that he fell in love with it. The goddess Aphrodite, moved by the king’s feelings, told him: “You deserve happiness, a happiness you yourself have shaped. Here is the queen you have sought. Love her and protect her from harm”. Then, the statue came to life, and Pygmalion married her.

Over the centuries, this ancient myth has been a source of inspiration for art and literature. George Bernard Shaw wrote a play offering a modernised version of the story. A professor of phonetics sets out to teach a flower-seller of humble origins how to speak “properly”. He helps her refine her accent and acquire conversational skills. Various film scripts – such as My Fair Lady or Pretty Woman – have reworked the Irish writer’s idea.

Yet this idea has also been taken up in social psychology, giving rise to what is known as the Pygmalion effect. This term is used to describe how an individual’s expectations of another person’s performance may condition the outcomes. The phenomenon is of particular interest in the study of groups, as a researcher’s prejudices may influence the behaviour of those being studied.

Psychologist David C. McClelland, drawing on the work of Leonore Jacobson and Robert Rosenthal, conducted a series of tests with school pupils. The real results, however, were not communicated to the teaching staff. Instead, a group of pupils was chosen at random, and teachers were falsely informed that these students had been identified as particularly gifted. Despite the “falsehood”, this group obtained better grades by the end of the year, while their classmates showed no significant improvement.

McClelland’s conclusion was that, when teachers regard certain students as more intelligent, those students tend to study more. Although this may appear almost magical, it is nothing of the sort. Teachers with explicit expectations about their pupils treat them differently according to their own preconceptions. They give more attention and provide better motivation to those they deem more capable. These students, in turn, tend to respond more accurately and frequently than the rest. Thus, the teachers’ expectations are confirmed in a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy.

From this experiment, the idea of the Pygmalion effect has often been applied to educational innovation. When a group of researchers or teachers introduces a new classroom technique, it may fail through lack of experience – but the opposite can also occur: results improve significantly, apparently confirming the value of the method.

Nevertheless, the Pygmalion effect warns us that other factors may also be at play: the motivation of the researchers or teachers rubs off on the pupils who take part in the experiment. In a collective atmosphere of enthusiasm, curiosity, and heightened attention to novel conditions, everything seems to work better. Breaking routine increases interest.

Thus, improvements cannot be attributed solely to the effectiveness of a new method; the influence of the created environment and shared expectations must also be taken into account. In the myth, the artist falls in love with his creation, and she comes to life. In reality, the researcher falls in love with their theory, and the students act in line with those expectations.

However, when the same method is implemented in other groups with less enthusiastic teachers, results are often far less impressive. And when imposed by educational authorities, such methods may even prove disastrous.

There is, nonetheless, a greater danger. The reverse side of Pygmalion’s enamoured gaze is the abandonment of scientific rigour and the denial of evidence. Pupils may be misled into believing that their abilities exceed their actual potential. This is what is colloquially known as “grade inflation”. The education system creates an illusion, deceiving young people and misleading society. A fraud in every sense. Subsequent frustration is inevitable, since reality eventually asserts itself.

Indeed, we move from the Pygmalion effect to the Dunning-Kruger effect, according to which some people of limited ability tend – precisely because of that limitation – to overestimate their competence in certain tasks. In other words, those who are incompetent in a given area often fail to recognise their own ineptitude. This phenomenon is also described as a “dual burden”: not only a lack of competence, but also the inability to recognise that deficiency.

The Dunning–Kruger effect is usually linked to metacognitive factors, but what is most alarming is when it stems from educational intervention itself. What might at first appear a cognitive dysfunction affecting particular individuals is generalised through the failings of a negligent school system. Academic authorities may dress up results in order to conceal their mistakes. Such recklessness risks producing a generation who not only do not know, but – worse still – they do not know that they know nothing.

Source: educational EVIDENCE

Rights: Creative Commons