The Dunning-Kruger Effect makes it difficult for individuals to recognize their own incompetence and leads them to inflated self-assessments. Charles Darwin observed that ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge. The Dunning-Kruger Effect is most noted in 15-17 year old teenagers, in the following statement. I was surprised at how little my father knew when I turned 15, but I was really surprised at how much he had learned by the time I turned 25. It is very prevalent amongst the religious bible thumpers who are very confident of their religious ideology even if they know that have zero proof of it's esoteric-beliefs Unaccomplished individuals do not possess the degree of metacognitive skills necessary for accurate self-assessment that their more accomplished counterparts possess. One reason is that people seldom receive negative feedback about their skills and abilities from others in everyday life. In fact, they avoid scrutiny at all times. This is true of judges and DAs in the judiciary. When you examine multiple articles about the judiciary or about lawyers and DAs, you can conclude that the majority of these people don't think very clearly about their jobs in society. The harm they do to society exceeds their net worth. The costs of self-inflation can be particularly high. Very often, feedback is nonexistent or ambiguous. It's a safe assumption that what people say to our face is more positive than what they say behind our backs. The feedback is even much more positive once you die and it is known that you cannot cause more harm to society.. Ignorance is at the root of some self-inflation Students who generally perform poorly greatly overestimate the performance compared to those who did well. Then, there are self-assessments in the moral domain where you find the holier than thou syndrone. Undergraduates consistently overrated the likelyhood that they would act in generous or selfless ways. I see this holier than thou syndrone in lawyers, DAs and judges. As Western society becomes more individualistic, a successful life has come to be equated with having high self-esteem. Inflating one's sense of self creates positive emotions and feelings of self-efficacy, but the downside is that people don't really like self-enhancers very much. An examination of the Honor Roll in any school will show that one third of the school is on the honor roll. Children in many cultures tend to overrate their abilities because they lack objective feedback about their performance. No rational mother would call their children losers, but they should. There are significant cross-cultural differences in youngsters performance estimates - American children it appears are particularly prone to overestimate their competence. One antidote to inaccurate self-assessment is high quality feedback. This implies strong negative feedback, like You're a loser, Bobby.

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