Dunning-Kruger Effect
Incompetent people overestimate their competence.
Tiny Summary
Dunning-Kruger Effect: "Low-ability individuals overestimate their competence." Beginners think they know everything; experts know they don't.
The Curve
Confidence
↑ Peak of "Mount Stupid"
| /\
| / \___________ Plateau of
| / \ Sustainability
| / \____
|___/________________________\___→ Competence
Beginner Expert
The Stages
Peak of Mount Stupid: Just learned React → "I could rewrite Facebook." High confidence, low competence.
Valley of Despair: Realize how much you don't know. Imposter syndrome. Low confidence, growing competence.
Slope of Enlightenment: Competence growing, confidence recovering realistically.
Plateau of Sustainability: High competence, realistic confidence, aware of limits.
Why It Happens
Lack of metacognition: Can't assess your own incompetence. Don't know what you don't know.
Beginner's overconfidence: Simple cases work → Assume all cases work. Haven't hit edge cases. Don't know about scalability, security, etc.
Real Examples
Junior: "Why don't we rewrite everything in [new framework]?" → Doesn't understand migration costs, legacy dependencies
Bootcamp grad: "I can build Instagram in a weekend" → Doesn't understand scale, infrastructure, edge cases
Manager who coded once: "This should only take a day" → Doesn't understand current complexity
The Opposite
Experts often underestimate themselves: Know all edge cases → Feel incompetent. Aware of unknowns → Doubt themselves. Compare to other experts → Feel inadequate.
Key Insights
Super confident as a beginner → Dunning-Kruger. Feel incompetent as you learn → That's growth. Experts have realistic confidence, not overconfidence. "I know that I know nothing" — Socrates. Humility correlates with competence.