Risk Management and Patty Wagstaff

[rmarshall234 13]

Did anyone happen to catch the Nov issue of Plane and Pilot magazine in which Patty Wagstaff wrote about Risk Management? The take-away from the article for me, is her mention of the 2000 Ig Nobel Prize winning study called the Dunning-Kruger Effect. Wikipedia gives a good explanation of it. (Can someone smarter than me please give an assist and create a clicky?) It is an interesting study/article and I would recommend to anyone involved in a high risk activity such as Skydiving. Instructors should find it very interesting.

[NWFlyer 2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

[pchapman 261]

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Dunning-Kruger Effect.

Ah, the "unskilled and unaware of it" cognitive bias.

Demonstrated in skydiving by some of the Mad Skillz crowd.

[rmarshall234 13]

Thanks, NWFlyer.

I like your tagline too.

[rmarshall234 13]

Yes, however, I found the "people with true ability tended to underestimate their relative competence" to be even more fascinating.

[pchapman 261]

I'm guessing we shouldn't take the idea too far either. While I haven't checked to see specifically what the research showed, not everyone is going to be overconfident about what they don't know.

There are plenty of times where you know your are no good at something -- unskilled and aware of it. Even if you feel some sense of accomplishment at a small success in the field, you know not to overinflate it's meaning in the big picture.

In teaching skydiving we deal both with overconfidence, and underconfidence.

[diablopilot 2]

I saw that....was interesting stuff. Not surprising to see the hypothesis confirmed though.

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You're not as good as you think you are. Seriously.

[MajorDad 0]

Thanks for posting the link.

Major Dad
CSPA D-579

[airtwardo 6]

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Did anyone happen to catch the Nov issue of Plane and Pilot magazine in which Patty Wagstaff wrote about Risk Management? The take-away from the article for me, is her mention of the 2000 Ig Nobel Prize winning study called the Dunning-Kruger Effect. Wikipedia gives a good explanation of it. (Can someone smarter than me please give an assist and create a clicky?) It is an interesting study/article and I would recommend to anyone involved in a high risk activity such as Skydiving. Instructors should find it very interesting.

Some well worded ideas we've known for quite some time, I like the handle this puts on it.


~From the article: Kruger and Dunning proposed that, for a given skill, incompetent people will:

1. tend to overestimate their own level of skill;

2. fail to recognize genuine skill in others;

3. fail to recognize the extremity of their inadequacy;

4. recognize and acknowledge their own previous lack of skill, if they can be trained to substantially improve.





~~ I've known Patty for over 20 years, we were having an interesting discussion a few months back regarding this very subject...at least in part.

She was telling me the huge differences between flying 'fire-bombers' as opposed to her air show routine...and how no matter how many world meets ya win, you listen closely to the ole guy with the sweaty ball cap who's BTDT regarding her new profession.

I found it refreshing to see someone of her stature and flying abilities having no qualms regarding new learning/training from basically square one, and shelving the ego as part of the process.

I 'kinda' always thought I did that too, but talking with her gave me pause to reflect and maybe re-think the 'way' I approach some things I'd like to both 'learn new' & things I need to get better at.

~ If you choke a Smurf, what color does it turn? ~

[Rover 9]

http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=10150357898180809

If you do something long enough, you can get very good at doing it badly.

2 wrongs don't make a right - but 3 lefts do.

[mjosparky 3]

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Yes, however, I found the "people with true ability tended to underestimate their relative competence" to be even more fascinating.

Impostor syndrome.

Sparky

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome

My idea of a fair fight is clubbing baby seals

[JohnMitchell 14]

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Yes, however, I found the "people with true ability tended to underestimate their relative competence" to be even more fascinating.

Must be why I'm so humble.

[JohnMitchell 14]

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I 'kinda' always thought I did that too, but talking with her gave me pause to reflect and maybe re-think the 'way' I approach some things I'd like to both 'learn new' & things I need to get better at.

I, like you, have been privileged to know some of the best in our sport. Their humility has always impressed me, their awareness that everyone has limits that must be respected. I try to emulate that in all that I do.

[riggerrob 558]

patty Wagstaff's comments make sense.

During my last training, instructors talked about four levels of competence:
1. unconscious that they are incompetent
2. conscious that they are incompetent
3. conscious that they are competent
4. unconscious that they are competent aka. "zen"

The problem - especially with North American skydivers - is that after they survive a few jumps, they quickly jump to level 1 and some stay there for decades.

And yes, I was deliberately criticizing North Americans, having skydived in: Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Holland, Portugal, Puerto Rico and the USA. and jumped with skydivers from another two dozen countries.

[rmarshall234 13]

Your personal observations are supported by the study. Here is an excerpt as reported by Wiki:

Regardless of how pervasive the phenomenon is, it is clear from Dunning’s and others’ work that many Americans, at least sometimes and under some conditions, have a tendency to inflate their worth. It is interesting, therefore, to see the phenomenon’s mirror opposite in another culture. In research comparing North American and East Asian self-assessments, Heine of the University of British Columbia finds that East Asians tend to underestimate their abilities, with an aim toward improving the self and getting along with others.

Sounds like they are at level 4.