No Surpassing!

Way sajop, pirme eksakto! Lately, one can observe that difficult people are thriving all around. We can hear them complain on everything. In public utility vehicles, they won’t consider the elderly and even other passengers by sitting as if they own the vehicle. There are those who find minute details in the services of a restaurant just to underscore his or her presence. They point out “wrong” details crossing borders by shaming the service-providers. There are those who would slave-drive hotel personnel for them to be served right. Most of them are adults.

When we point out the humane side of things, they give retorts telling you that it is right for them to give the right services! When you ask: even to the point of embarrassing them? YES! Is the big answer.

In 1999 Cornell psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger, coined the eponymous Dunning-Kruger Effect.

The Dunning-Kruger effect is a type of cognitive bias in which people believe that they are smarter and more capable than they really are. Essentially, low ability people do not possess the skills needed to recognize their own incompetence. The combination of poor self-awareness and low cognitive ability leads them to overestimate their own capabilities (Cherry, 2019).

Difficult people believe than they are better than anybody since their perceptions of their intellect and abilities are the topmost of all knowledge and skills. They do not understand that learning and knowledge are dynamic. And when someone manifests higher intellect, they still do not agree since their sphere of understanding about capabilities are only limited to what they have.

Cherry continued: this phenomenon is something you have likely experienced in real life, perhaps around the dinner table at a holiday family gathering. Throughout the course of the meal, a member of your extended family begins spouting off on a topic at length, boldly proclaiming that he is correct and that everyone else's opinion is stupid, uninformed, and just plain wrong. It may be plainly evident to everyone in the room that this person has no idea what he is talking about, yet he prattles on, blithely oblivious to his own ignorance.

What causes such behavioral phenomenon?

Dunning and Kruger suggest that this phenomenon stems from what they refer to as a "dual burden." People are not only incompetent; their incompetence robs them of the mental ability to realize just how inept they are. Incompetent people tend to: Overestimate their own skill levels; Fail to recognize the genuine skill and expertise of other people; Fail to recognize their own mistakes and lack of skill.

Dunning has pointed out that the very knowledge and skills necessary to be good at a task are the exact same qualities that a person needs to recognize that they are not good at that task. So if a person lacks those abilities, they remain not only bad at that task but ignorant to their own inability.

They then continue to believe that they are better than anyone. NO ONE CAN SURPASS THEM!

In organizations, these people tend to cause chaos and conflict. It takes a self-mastered manager to point out their inadequacies and teach them how to humbly accept their incompetence. And since most of them do not contribute a lot to the group, there must be a focused intervention for them to become better.

Since their area of belief is only focused on their own, exposure to successful figures and icons is necessary for them to be taken out from their ignorance. They can also be given reprimands which may shatter their bias.

Psychology Today says that the Dunning-Kruger effect has been found in domains ranging from logical reasoning to emotional intelligence, financial knowledge, and firearm safety. And the effect isn't spotted only among incompetent individuals; most people have weak points where the bias can take hold. This tendency may occur because gaining a small amount of knowledge in an area about which one was previously ignorant can make them feel as though they’re suddenly virtual experts. Only after continuing to explore a topic do people often realize how extensive it is and how much they still have to master.

We sometimes learn to live with them. But if they cross our lines, we can give them a dose of their own medicine.