The Dunning-Kruger Effect and COVID-19

Observations from a nurse

Dunning-Kruger Effect

The Dunning-Kruger effect is a type of cognitive bias in which people believe they are smarter and more capable than what they actually 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 capabilities.

https://ambitiousaya.com/en/dunning-kruger-effect-workplace/

The concept of the Dunning-Kruger effect is based on a 1999 paper by Cornell University psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/dunning-kruger-effect

Here’s the link to the original study:

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

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10626367/

They correlate incompetence as stupid.

Dunning Kruger Effect: How Stupid People Think They Are Amazing

In short, this research in psychology showed that the more incompetent a person was, the higher the chances that he considered himself capable.

https://sites.google.com/a/imritechsearch.com/france-universite-numerique/home/-dunning-kruger-effects

Predictably, they’ve extended The Dunning-Kruger Effect to anyone who refuses the shot(s).

Enter the Dunning-Kruger Effect, a cognitive bias that a new study uses to explain anti-vaccine policy attitudes. 

“The scope of people’s ignorance is often invisible to them,” explained one of DKE’s originators – social psychologist David Dunning.

https://bigthink.com/surprising-science/how-the-dunning-kruger-effect-explains-anti-vaccine-attitudes/

Another mudsling:

On Covidiots and Covexperts:Stupidity and the Politics of Health

In this paper, I explore a particular facet of these public debate over the politics of health: the deployment of the commonplace of stupidity. I argue that the growth of this commonplace within discussion is rooted in particular models of interpretation which limit selfunderstanding, by over-emphasising certain points of significance within the interpretative horizon over more banal (and “stupid”) aspects that are, nevertheless, influential on health interventions.

https://journalhosting.ucalgary.ca/index.php/jah/article/view/72538

And the fact checkers are rolling in the dough$…

International Fact-Checking Network announces initial round of funding supported by $13.2 million Google/YouTube grant

https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2023/12-million-global-fact-check-fund-awards-grants-to-35-organizations-serving-45-countries/

On Oct. 2nd, 2023, Poynter disclosed another 300K for fact-checking grants:

https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2020/ifcn-and-facebook-distribute-another-300k-through-the-coronavirus-fact-checking-grants-and-will-support-8-projects/

WhatsAPP and Facebook are donating $2 million to fight misinformation.

https://www.poynter.org/coronavirusfactsalliance/

The usual suspects:

THE BILL & MELINDA GATES FOUNDATION, list “The Poynter Institute for Media Studies, Inc.” as a “Committed Grant”.

https://www.gatesfoundation.org/about/committed-grants/2015/11/opp1138320

My understanding of the Freddy Krueger, oh…I mean, The Dunning-Kruger Effect applied to COVID-19 is:

Anyone who refuses the “vaccine(s)” is stupid.

Thank-you Freddy for coining with eloquence, “Welcome to my world, B****”!