The Dunning-Kruger Effect is a cognitive bias in which people with limited knowledge or competence in a given domain greatly overestimate their own ability, while experts tend to underestimate theirs. Documented by psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger in 1999, it explains why junior developers may be overly confident in their solutions, why code reviews are contentious, and why experienced engineers often hedge their estimates — they understand how much they don’t know.
Laws of Software Engineering: Dunning-Kruger Effect
Wikipedia: Dunning-Kruger Effect
Related
- Think Again — Grant’s work on intellectual humility directly addresses the overconfidence Dunning-Kruger describes
- A More Beautiful Question — the discipline of questioning your own assumptions counteracts the effect
- Confirmation Bias — overconfidence is reinforced by seeking information that confirms existing beliefs
- Peter Principle — people may be promoted based on confidence that outpaces competence