Unskilled and unaware of it: How difficulties in recognizing one's own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments

People tend to hold overly favorable views of their abilities in many socia l and intellectual domains. The authors suggest that this overestimation oc curs, in part, because people who are unskilled in these domains suffer a d ual burden: Not only do these people reach erroneous conclusions and make u nfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive a bility to realize it. Across 4 studies, the authors found that participants scoring in the bottom quartile on tests of humor, grammar, and logic gross ly overestimated their test performance and ability. Although their test sc ores put them in the 12th percentile, they estimated themselves to be in th e 62nd. Several analyses linked this miscalibration to deficits in metacogn itive skill, or the capacity to distinguish accuracy from error. Paradoxica lly, improving the skills of participants, and thus increasing their metaco gnitive competence, helped them recognize the limitations of their abilitie s.