Wednesday, May 15, 2013

The Dunning-Kruger effect

The Dunning-Kruger effect is something I think more people need to be aware of. It's the phenomenon that those who are unskilled in a particular field tend to overestimate their ability because they aren't good enough to know what they're getting wrong.

The opposite also occurs, that those who are skilled in a field are overly-conscious of their mistakes and don't realise just how much better they are than the average, so assume that other people should be able do the things that they see as very simple.

We see both sides of this in WoW all the time; that hunter who thinks he's king of the world because he always tops DPS in random groups; the healer who calls people retarded if they don't notice that they're standing in fire; the under-performing social raider who brags about his item level; that douchebag in trade chat who goes on about how easy it is to get to whatever his current arena rating is.

Gevlon is a fantastic example of the latter effect, being well-known for chiding people who don't put his level of thought into the game they play.

Nobody but Blizzard themselves seems to be aware of just how wide the range of skill is for players of this game.

Hm. I was kind of hoping this idea would go somewhere interesting. Oh well, call it a PSA. While I'm at it, don't do drugs.

The End.

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