Our good friends Dunning-Kruger: Political branch of the family

[wmw999 2,166]

There's a matrix -- the less you actually know about civics/politics works pretty well with Dunning-Kruger (i.e. the less you know, the more you tend to overestimate your ability). However, the more partisan your thinking, the more that effect is magnified, whether Democrat or Republican, and it seems as though you can be manipulated into it, by encouraging partisan thinking. 

I'm discussing this article in a class that I'm in on the 2020 primary season (I've avoided thinking too hard about it, so I figured it was time to dig in and understand at least part of what I've been avoiding). It's interesting; the authors did a lot of work, correlating political knowledge with partisanship and particpants' estimation of their ability. It seems that partisanship exacerbates the Dunning-Kruger effect --  it seems to make people on the low end of the knowledge scale even more sure that they know more than they actually do. I'd be interested to see how a more conservative-leaning periodical were to interpret this. The study that it quotes is here, but it's behind a paywall, and I'm not willing to pay; it can't be redistributed in any way. It's an organ of the International Society of Political Psychology.

Here  is a Science Trends blog post about the same original study.

The only right-leaning "publication" I can find that talks about Dunning-Kruger is Conservapadia (it was an exhaustive 5-second "what can I think of off the top of my head" search), and its characterization is pretty devoid of actual data. I found no references in conservative-leaning websites etc. online (and a VERY slanted headline

Wendy P.

Edited May 5, 2020 by wmw999
add a reference

[Coreece 190]

17 minutes ago, wmw999 said:

The study that it quotes is here, but it's behind a paywall, and I'm not willing to pay; it can't be redistributed in any way. It's an organ of the International Society of Political Psychology.

To find studies behind paywalls, I usually do a search for the study title with "pdf" at the end and see if I get any hits.  This one was on the author's website:

http://www.iananson.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/2018-dunning-kruger.pdf

 

Neway, thanks.  Will have to check this out later.

 

22 minutes ago, wmw999 said:

the less you know, the more you tend to overestimate your ability

The other side to that is overestimating everyone else's ability.  For example, thinking that everyone should know the difference between rates and raw numbers.

[wmw999 2,166]

Thanks -- hadn't thought of that, and I'll read the original. The Science Trends article is really good, and doesn't get into the political side.

Wendy P.

[turtlespeed 212]

Should be interesting