The Dunning-Kruger Effect

A theory I've seen exemplified in the past year. 

An Example of the Dunning-Kruger Effect

Unlike yourself, I'm a great writer

Most people are required to write stuff for some reason or other. This is one area where the Dunning-Kruger Effect is prevalent. If you don't know you can't use an apostrophe to show a plural (e.g., two solution's) or you don't know that semicolons can't be used for introductions (e.g., I like the following; A, B and C), then these mistakes don't register as mistakes when you bash out your written correspondence. To the rest of the world, you look a bit of a dunce, but, as far as you're concerned, you're a great writer. Your incompetence has stopped you seeing your incompetence. The Dunning-Kruger Effect is the reverse side of the coin to this football chant: 

"You're shit, and you know you are." (Football chant) 

With the Dunning-Kruger Effect, they don't know they are. 

According to Dunning and Kruger, ignorance is behind a great deal of incompetence. They assert that incompetent people will:

• Overestimate their abilities.
• Fail to recognise genuine ability in others.
• Not recognise the extremity of their inadequacy.

Oh, if you didn't spot that the "Unlike Yourself" in the title of this example should be "Unlike You", you could be one of those unwittingly whacking loads of grammar errors into your work without realising it. Eeek! Solution? Use competent proofreaders

Another example:

n the field of psychology, the Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which people of low ability have illusory superiority and mistakenly assess their cognitive ability as greater than it is. The cognitive bias of illusory superiority comes from the inability of low-ability people to recognize their lack of ability. Without the self-awareness of metacognition, low-ability people cannot objectively evaluate their competence or incompetence

This ringing a bell with anyone