David Dunning's We Are All Confident Idiots

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David Dunning’s article “We Are All Confident idiots” is effective as it correctly pinpoints the mistakes and reasons that many people overestimate their knowledge. Throughout the entire article Dunning provides evidence not only from his colleagues and himself, but he also provides evidence from other professors at different colleges to provide a broader idea of overestimated knowledge. However, although the article provides effective evidence to support that humans do often overestimate their knowledge, Dunning’s tone throughout the article could cause many people to feel ridiculed as he used terms such as, “incompetence, idiocy, and ignorance” (Dunning). Using terms such as these could cause a person to feel small compared to others and could possibly make people feel like Dunning is taunting them for not being as smart as he is. In the beginning of the article, Dunning cites the Jimmy Kimmel show’s prank segment “Lie…show more content…
In one situation, the Jimmy Kimmel camera crew asked a woman “What have you heard about Tonya and the Hardings?” the interviewer asked. “Have you heard they’re kind of hard-hitting?” Failing to pick up on this verbal wink, the woman launched into an elaborate response about the fictitious band” (Dunning 2). That being said, one can confirm that given the right amount of false information can cause a person to create inferences about a certain situation to prevent themselves from looking unintelligent. As for myself and many others alike, school often teaches you to make inferences based on given information and like many of the unfortunate people in the Jimmy Kimmel

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