Dangerous Delusions

“How long will you set your heart on shadows, chasing your lies and delusions?” (Psalm 4:2 TPT)

The Dunning-Kruger effect is a form of cognitive bias in which people who are incompetent also lack self-awareness of their incompetence. They operate under an illusion of superiority on all subjects. They know too little to even recognize how little they know. They prattle foolishness instead of deferring to those who have expertise in an area. 

“In many cases, incompetence does not leave people disoriented, perplexed, or cautious. Instead, the incompetent are often blessed with an inappropriate confidence, buoyed by something that feels to them like knowledge.” (David Dunning, Pacific Standard)

We have all encountered someone who displays the Dunning-Kruger effect. Funny videos of toddlers who have no clue about a subject but still claim to be know-it-alls are popular on the internet. This overconfidence combined with ignorance can be amusing in a toddler but disastrous in adults. As children grow up, most of them will learn enough to know how much more there is to know. Unfortunately, narcissistic adults often do not reach this point of intellectual humility. Instead, they make decisions that affect themselves and others based on their meta-ignorance. They may influence others to follow their delusions. The results can be deadly.