Unit 2.3 – Competency Modeling ands KSA’s

Describe how to effectively manage human capital and properly assess knowledge, skills, and abilities to find valuable resources (people).

READINGS ATTACHED BELOW

2.3: Competency Modeling and KSAs

· Center for Disease Control and Prevention: “The Importance of KSAs (Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities)”Page

Read this article, which discusses knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) and discusses the qualifications and attributes a job candidate will need to perform for a particular position. This authors focus on obtaining a job in the U.S. federal government, but you can apply their insight to identify and apply KSAs to any position opening.

· David Lacko’s “Dunning-Kruger Effect: Why Once a Fool, Always a Fool”URL

This article discusses the Dunning-Kruger Effect, noting that poor performers most often fail to learn from their mistakes. This inability to self-critique and self-correct poses obstacles for HR. While HR can provide feedback channels for employees to learn from, employees must also possess the skills needed to identify and remedy weaknesses in their own performance. Make the connection between these obstacles and the important task of HR to properly assess knowledge, skills, and abilities to find valuable human resources.

http://www.psychologon.cz/component/content/article/403-dunning-kruger-effect-why-once-a-fool-always-a-fool

Center for Disease Control and Prevention: “The Importance of KSAs (Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities)”

The Importance of KSA’s (Knowledge, Skills and Abilities) in the Federal Application Process

KSAs describe the qualifications and personal attributes (knowledge, skills and abilities) you need to successfully perform the job requirements of a certain job. The hiring agency hopes to find these unique requirements in the person they hire. A primary purpose of KSAs is to measure the qualities that will set one candidate apart from the others. In general, hiring managers will consider applicants who match the position’s defined KSAs more highly than those candidates who lack these important qualifications.

Knowledge statements refer to whether the candidate has the necessary organized, factual, and procedural knowledge to perform the job adequately. This knowledge relates directly to the performance function.

Skill statements refer to whether the candidate is able to manually, verbally, and mentally manipulate data and things related to the position. Hiring managers can use a timed performance test to measure the quantity and quality of these skills. Examples of job skills include the ability to use specific computer software programs or operate a certain type of machinery or vehicle.

Ability statements refer to the ability to perform certain observable job-related activities, such as the ability to plan or organize work. Candidates typically show they possess these abilities by stating they have performed these job functions in the past during previous work assignments. Note that “aptitudes” describe whether a candidate has the potential ability to perform a certain activity in the future because they may have studied or performed similar work in the past.

KSAs—Why You Cannot Ignore Them

Some job applicants, such as those applying for a federal position for the first time, are unsure whether responding to the KSA requirements are optional. Always be sure to respond to the KSA portion of a federal application!

Agencies may assign relative weights to each KSA, such as by deeming some KSAs as mandatory (M), and others as desirable (D). While, you should focus on responding to the mandatory KSAs, remember to address every KSA on the list. Assume they are all equally important if the vacancy announcement makes no distinction among them.

Remember that every KSA must be job-related. An agency cannot ask for anything in a KSA that is not listed in the job description.

Writing Your KSAs

Do not assume the person who reviews your resume will infer information from your application or pick up on salient points. They will not. Even if there were time for this insight, reviewers and evaluators are not allowed to make any assumptions or inferences.

When you Develop Your KSAs, Be Sure to Follow These Guidelines

· Read the position announcement carefully.

· Gather the information you need to begin writing.

· Be specific.

· Be precise.

· Get to the point.

· Do not ramble.

· Use lots of examples.

· State what you have done specifically.

· Do not use acronyms.

· Present yourself in “clear and plain” language.

· Do not borrow or repeat language from the position description.

How to Write Responses to Knowledge, Skills and Abilities (KSAs)

If you apply for a position announced in the KSA format—describe how your experience relates to each KSA.

Follow these four steps when writing your KSA responses.

Step 1. Read the KSAs Closely.

To write a good response, make sure you understand what each KSA means. While, most KSAs are fairly general, the position announcement usually contains a brief summary description of the duties of the position. Read this summary description carefully.

Step 2. Review All of Your Experiences for Activities that Relate to the Individual KSAs.

Think about this step as a brainstorming session—review all of your work-related, volunteer, and other experiences and activities that may relate to the KSAs. For example, if the KSA refers to your ability to communicate orally, consider all of the times you have used your oral communication skills.

For example: When you were an administrator you instructed your work colleagues about the new computer procedures they should follow. As a management analyst you presented your recommendations for new workflow procedures during the annual staff retreat.

Consider any relevant education, training, self-development programs you participated in, or awards you may have received.

For example: A training program you completed on effective briefing techniques, or an award you received for an oral debate you participated in.

Consider experiences you have had in non-work related areas, such as volunteer or school-related activities. These experiences are just as valid as work-related examples, as long as they are relevant to the KSA you are writing about.

For example: While you were a Cub Scout leader you chaired a fund raising activity; when you were a student you served as a student council representative.

Consider your experiences in order—earliest to most recent—so you are sure to include all of your relevant jobs or experiences. Include paid, unpaid, and volunteer jobs, experiences and training. Keep in mind that the experiences you had in one job or area may apply to more than one KSA.

For example: The KSAs “ability to meet and deal with members of the general public” and the “ability to coordinate the activities of a subordinate staff” both involve skills in oral communications.

Do not worry about being repetitive. Since reviewers rate each KSA separately, as long as the information you provide is relevant, it does not matter if you have used it in another KSA.

Step 3. Analyze the Experiences you have Identified.

Scrutinize all of the experiences you identified in step two and concentrate on the things you think will impress the reviewers. How did you use your relevant knowledge, skills, and abilities in the jobs and experiences you identified? You will use your responses to this question to write your KSA (step four). Some call this process task analysis.

Here are some examples of the kinds of questions you should ask about your experiences:

· What kinds of knowledge and skills did you use while performing your job?

· What steps, procedures, practices, rules, policies, theories, principles or concepts did you use?

· How did you apply this knowledge, principles, and concepts in your work?

· How did you apply the knowledge, skills, and abilities you have to accomplish your work?

· What kind of supervision did you receive? Did you supervise others?

· How was your work assigned? Did you assign work to others?

· What was your responsibility to accomplish your work?

· Did you work and make decisions independently? In what ways?

· How did your supervisor and your co-workers review your work?

· What guidelines did you use to accomplish your work?

· Were the instructions you used to perform your work in written or oral form, or both?

· Did you use procedural manuals?

· What other written procedures did you use?

· What kind of oral instructions did you use?

· How much judgement did you use to apply the guidelines you used to accomplish your job?

· Were the guidelines you used easy to apply or did they require interpretation?

· How difficult were the guidelines you used to interpret your job?

· How complex was your job?

· What was the nature of the work you did?

For example: “Tasks were clear-cut and related directly to one another,” or “The work involved different and unrelated processes and methods,” or “The work consisted of broad functions and processes of an administrative or professional nature.”

How difficult was it to identify what needed to be done?

For example: “Decisions required an extensive analysis of the situation since there were many alternatives,” or “Extensive analysis was required to define the nature of the problems I was asked to fix.”

· How difficult was the work you did?

· How did your work affect other processes or individuals?

· Who did you have to contact on a daily basis?

· Why did you have to contact these individuals?

· What was your role in these discussions or meetings?

For example: “to provide information,” “to receive information, “to influence or advise someone,” or “to convince someone of something.”

Once you have completed steps one, two and three, you will have a good understanding of the KSAs and lots of facts about your experiences. You are ready to complete the final step.

Step 4. Show how the Facts you have Gathered about your Experiences Relate to the Individual KSAs.

Tell the reviewers about the experiences you have had in a way that clearly shows how they relate to the knowledge, skill, or ability. In other words, you need to demonstrate a link between your own experiences and the KSA. Do not assume this correlation is obvious, even if it may seem obvious to you. The review or promotion panel is not allowed to give you credit for your experiences unless you provide specific examples that show how and why your experiences relate to a particular KSA.

When telling this to the review or promotion panel, remember a few important facts:

· The reviewers will rate the content of your responses, not the writing style you use. You can use brief sentences or phrases as long as the review or promotion panel knows what you mean.

· Long responses do not guarantee a high rating. Give the review or promotion panel direct and concise responses.

· Do not use abbreviations, acronyms, or jargon—assume the reviewers will not understand them (which means they will not be able to credit your experience appropriately).

Hypothetical KSA #1

Administrative Officer, GS-5 KSA Title: Ability to write non-technical correspondence.

Sample Responses

KSA Response #1: I type letters every day. Sometimes I have to type them from a draft that the manager gives me. I also use form letters or the manager tells me that he wants me to write. I write memos requesting supplies or advising employees of training classes. I have been a secretary in my unit for 3 years and always finish my work quickly and correctly.

KSA Response #2: I am the secretary in my unit. I am responsible for writing the responses for most non-technical correspondence received in the unit and for all administrative matters within the unit. I respond using various form letters. Sometimes, I must draft letters from start-to-finish, depending on the nature of the inquiry. For example, an employee may ask me to write a statement regarding leave balances or I may have to write a memo to the warehouse regarding supply shortages. The manager often gives me draft memos which I must rewrite to ensure we use proper grammar and put into the right format.

Which Response is Better?

The writer of the first response seems to be confusing typing with writing. It is not until the third sentence that we get some specific information regarding a writing activity. In the last sentence, the writer gives us some new information (how long the writer has been a secretary and how well the writer does the work of the position) that has nothing to do with the KSA as defined for the job. Remember that the review or promotion panel rates your responses as they relate to the crediting plan. If what you have written is not relevant to the KSA, it will not relate to the crediting plan either and you will not receive any credit for it.

The second response provides more relevant and useful information. The writer has provided specific information related to the KSA and has given examples to show the kind of writing that is being done. This response gives the review or promotion panel enough information to properly credit the writer’s experience.

Hypothetical KSA #2

Management Analyst, GS-12 KSA Title: Ability to communicate in writing.

Sample Responses

KSA Response #1: One of the most important things I do in my position is prepare reports and studies of the various components in our organization. They always have to be written in a clear and concise manner and often involve very complex issues like organizational structures, work methods and procedures, manpower utilization, delegations of authority and other issues. I usually have to pull together a lot of different information and from difference sources. I usually have to work within very short time frames to produce a really needed study or report. Below are some examples of the material I have written.

Staffing Reports/Workload Reports—in particular I am involved in the WMS/FTE weekly reports—this includes components in Fiscal Control and also DTB PLUS studies. These studies are done on an “as needed” basis and involve many operational and technical issues. They only are required when management sees a need for them and specifically requests an analysis. We set up a team and review the targeted work. These reports require a lot of data gathering activity. Director’s reports—these also involve a lot of data analysis from the HAL reports and are sent to the director’s staff advisor.

KSA Response #2: In my current position, I regularly write technical and administrative memos and study reports, which identify actual and potential problem areas in inter-related work processes, the underlying source of operating difficulties, trends, significant management accomplishments, merit/deficiency situations, and other areas of imbalance. These papers always include recommendations for improvement in the studied areas.

Examples of the kinds of studies or reports I have produced are as follows. I typically write memos that represented the Regional Office (RO) position on proposed procedures or work processes. This involves evaluating the affect of alternative actions on the work processes under consideration, recommending how to best use the available manpower and resources, and identifying other alternatives worthy of consideration. We consolidated the information and comments from multiple components into one memo, to represent the Regional Office’s position on a given issue.

An example of this type of product was the formulation of office comments on the design of the new national fishery control system user’s comments. A committee reviewed the release to evaluate if all pertinent work processes were included and identify whether more efficient design alternatives were possible. I consolidated the comments of the committee and formulated the final office comment memo.

I have been involved in periodic reports on national TS/incubation workloads since 2013. A team of analysts researched and wrote these reports. They consolidated the final product from other area reports and issued a combined report to the secretary.

I also wrote position papers detailing the Regional Office position on administrative, workload processing, and work measurement issues. An example of this type of product is a memo prepared for Central Office in July 2012 stating the RO’s position on the issue of productivity measurement in the field stations. This memo presented our views on the Secretary’s Productivity Analysis Project and pointed out the flaws in their basic assumptions. It listed the major problem areas, which should be addressed to provide valid productivity measures for all the field stations. It presented the RO’s concerns and ideas concerning the elements necessary for an acceptable productivity measure.

In addition, I have also completed six semester hours of college-level writing courses. I am also the corresponding secretary for Tri Sigma National Sorority.

Which Response is Better?

The writer of the first response has “borrowed” some of the language from the duties described in the vacancy announcement to tell the review or promotion panel about their work responsibilities. This does not give the panel any more specific information about the candidate’s experience than what they already know from the position announcement. The examples the candidate gives could be relevant to the KSA, but they do not provide specific information that explains how their activities relate to the KSA. The writer also uses a lot of acronyms which may confuse the review or promotion panel. Finally, the writer does not explain their specific role in these activities. For example, what what is the candidate’s role when they write, “I am involved in …” or “we set up a team …” ?

The second response gives more relevant and specific information. The candidate provides a general introductory statement, which offers background to the examples that follow. The first and last examples are specific and give enough information so the review or promotion panel will understand what the candidate has done and how it relates to the crediting plan. However, the candidate’s second example falls short because they use some jargon (TS incubation workload) which may mean little or nothing to the review or promotion panel. The candidate’s involvement in the activity described in the second example is not clear. What does “I have been involved in periodic reports” mean? Regardless of these faults, the second candidate responded better to the KSA section of the application than the first.

Last modified: Monday, April 22, 2019, 12:49 PM

The majority of people believe that they are better-than-average. In psychology, this phenomenon is called the illusory superiority. A specific form of illusory superiority is Dunning–Kruger’s effect which states that people overestimate their abilities based on their real abilities. The rule is that the less competent a person is, the more they overestimate themselves. And, on the other hand, able people have a tendency to underestimate themselves slightly. A considerable part of this phenomenon is also the fact that the less able people do not change their attitudes even after being confronted with the reality.

The majority of people believe that they are better-than-average. Some sources (Boyd, 2014) mention that as much as 93 % of population consider themselves better than average, even though it is logical, that it is statistically impossible. In psychology, this phenomenon is called the illusory superiority, or the Above Average Effect / Better than Average Effect. Out of interest, I will give you a few examples.The majority of people think that they are more intelligent and more attractive than the majority of others (Whittlestone, 2012), and on the scale from 1 to 10, where 10 is the highest better-than-average, they ascribe themselves number 7 (Ghose, 2013). 88 % of people think that they drive better-than-average (Svenson, 1981); even the majority of elderly people rank themselves among better-than-average drivers (Marottoli and Richardson, 1998). If you suppose that this is only the case in more stupid people, you are wrong.94% of professors assume that they are better-than-average in comparison to their colleagues (Cross, 1977). And we could continue like this forever.

The majority of people believe that they are better-than-average. Some sources (Boyd, 2014) mention that as much as 93 % of population consider themselves better than average, even though it is logical, that it is statistically impossible. In psychology, this phenomenon is called the illusory superiority, or the Above Average Effect / Better than Average Effect. Out of interest, I will give you a few examples.The majority of people think that they are more intelligent and more attractive than the majority of others (Whittlestone, 2012), and on the scale from 1 to 10, where 10 is the highest better-than-average, they ascribe themselves number 7 (Ghose, 2013). 88 % of people think that they drive better-than-average (Svenson, 1981); even the majority of elderly people rank themselves among better-than-average drivers (Marottoli and Richardson, 1998). If you suppose that this is only the case in more stupid people, you are wrong.94% of professors assume that they are better-than-average in comparison to their colleagues (Cross, 1977). And we could continue like this forever.

We all know situations when we met somebody who did not realize how stupid he or she is. In an internet discussion you have met a scribbler who strongly held their opinion and did not change it even after somebody had disproved it in a relevant way. After a few drinks, a family gathering had changed into a socio-political-economic debate and you realized that your uncle is not a worker, but a political science professor, and that your grandmother knows more about economics than an acknowledged expert. Or rather, both of them were convinced about that. From time to time, you hear a debate in a pub at a table next to you, and you immediately understand what the real case is with the democracy. And it must have happened to you that a friend wrote to you about incredible proof of extra-terrestrial civilisations, or about an Illuminati conspiracy he or she had uncovered. Or your female friend advised you to get rid of your microwave oven because she had read about its harmful effects on the internet, and recommended reliable homeopathic medicine for an attractive price of 500 CZK.

All these people have one thing in common.The ignorance which they ignore. And if you have been recalling people and situations which fit my words up to now, and have not even once thought about the possibility that you might sometimes behave in a similar way, it is likely that you have also been a victim of this illusion. You likely consider yourself to be above average as well (and in a number of areas). Not that everybody who has seen themselves as above average has fallen for the illusory superiority, even though it is wiser to be careful because the phenomenon that I am going to describe below sees no difference and can attack all of us.

“Ignorance is strength” is one of the central mottos of Ingsoc in Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984. And frankly, this motto is not far from truth. Philosophy had directly addressed this issue long before Winston set out to find the truth. There is a thematic saying that we ascribe to Socrates: “I know that I know nothing.” The largest legacy of it is the scepticism towards the illusion of knowing. Even before Socrates, Confucius wrote that “real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.” Bertrand Russell added another warning to this thought: “The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent full of doubt.” And Charles Darwin really threw the helve after the hatchet: “Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.” You will learn below to what extent these words are true.

Not only these but also other philosophers have seen a huge threat for knowledge and science in ignorance, illusory superiority, stupidity and dogmatic certitude. Therefore, it is no wonder that sooner or later psychologists also got to this issue. First, they described and systematically verified the issue of illusory superiority. A bit later they also explored one of its specific parts which we call Dunning–Kruger effect these days.

DUNNING–KRUGER EFFECT

An inspiration for the first research was the case of a bank robber McArthur Wheeler from 1995 (Kruger and Dunning, 1999) who robbed two banks in Pittsburgh unarmed and without a mask. When the police arrested him, Wheeler was in shock and claimed that he “spilled juice on himself”. Wheeler believed that if he smeared lemon juice all over himself, he would be invisible to cameras. What is more, he did not change his opinion even after having seen the footage of the robbery which he labelled as fake (Morris, 2010).

When the psychology professor David Dunning from Cornell University read about the case in a newspaper, he decided to solve the mystery. Together with Justine Kruger, who was doing his post-gradual research at the same university at the time, he carried out research whose results were published in an article with a fitting title that is well-known and frequently quoted nowadays –Unskilled and Unaware of It. In the beginning, the phenomenon was described as the Unskilled-and-Unaware Problem. Dunning himself gave it an almost poetic name “anosognosia of everyday life” (Morris, 2010), and even though it is a relatively new phenomenon described only in 1999, it is generally known nowadays under the name of both the researchers –the Dunning–Kruger effect. Authors have been awarded anIg Nobel prize – a parody award for unusual or trivial results of scientific research.

Dunning and Kruger (1999) examined the level of sense of humour, English grammar and logical thinking in Cornell University students. (There is no need to describe the respective studies in detail in this article. However, researching the sense of humour is so unconventional that I recommend watching this video, where the process of examining the sense of humour is described, among other things.) Subsequently, they studied students’ metacognition; therefore, they asked them what they thought their results were. They asked them what they thought of their general knowledge and about their success rates in comparison to others. Results showed a certain similarity in all the studies (even the future ones). To understand the results better, look at the following graph:

The participants were divided into four quartiles based on their results. It is evident that those who had the worse results in the test overestimated themselves most. Even though their average success rate was only 12 %, they assessed themselves much higher – around 62 %. The best of them, on the other hand, underestimated themselves slightly. However, that is not all.When the participants were confronted with the reality (the highest and the lowest quartile had to mark the results of the others) and had the opportunity to correct their assessments, the most competent people increased their assessment and got closer to the reality, while the least competent people did not change their metacognition (Kruger and Dunning, 1999). Feedback seems to help the competent ones more than the incompetent ones (e.g. Ferraro, 2010). That has been verified in other studies (Sheldon et al., 2014) where not only the incompetent ones were unable to receive negative feedback, but they also started to belittle the issue and question the test validity. David Dunning captured this issue in the best fashion (Morris, 2010): “If you’re incompetent, you can’t know you’re incompetent.” That is the curse.When you are in the low quartile, you just do not know about it.

WHY IS IT SO?

A requirement for the Dunning–Kruger effect is at least minimal knowledge of the issue (Ehringler et al., 2008; Kruger and Dunning, 1999). Only few people will overestimate themselves in, for example, the ability to fix nuclear weapons or juggling.On the other hand, everyday tasks, like writing, grammar, logic or driving, are together with global social topics are ideal for overestimating.The least competent people overestimate their abilities because of their ignorance.Because they are not familiar enough with a certain issue, they do not realize how big limits they have.The mistake of incompetent people is therefore in their perspective on their own knowledge and character (Kruger and Dunning, 1999). Some authors (e.g. Simons, 2013) assume that overestimating oneself is not caused by wrong metacognition but by irrational optimism in oneself. On the other hand, competent people know their knowledge very well , because they know their limits. However, their problem is assessing the performance of others, whom they overestimate, because when a task is easy for them, it will be easy for others as well (Kruger and Dunning, 1999). They fall into the so-called False-Consensus effect (see Ross et al., 1977).

Moreover, incompetent people suffer from a double curse (Dunning et al., 2003) which is a rather controversial idea supposing that the abilities required for a success in a test correlate with the correct self-awareness which enables us to estimate our strengths. The result is the fact that the incompetent people cannot change their attitudes even after being confronted with the reality, which is likely caused by the difficulty to accept negative feedback (Sheldon et al., 2014).

THE CRITICISM OF THE EXPERIMENT

The experiment has been repeated many times, not only with students but also with people in their natural environment, and with a high financial reward based on successful guesses and with a number of other modifications, with similar results (see e.g. Dunning et al., 2003; Ehringler et al., 2008; Schloesser et al., 2013; Sheldon et al., 2014). No influence of the gender has been detected, (Kruger and Dunning, 1999) neither a significant cultural difference – even though in some cultures, people overestimated themselves less, the Dunning–Kruger effect appeared there nonetheless (Deangelis, 2003). The results have been criticised a number of times. One of the first criticisms (Krueger and Mueller, 2002) attacked the methodology and statistics because the authors of the criticism assumed that the results are caused by mere regression towards the average in combination with the better-than-average effect. Their thesis has been subsequently further elaborated on by other authors (Burson et al., 2006) who assumed that there is no difference between the competent and the incompetent people, because the incompetent ones overestimate themselves roughly in the same way as the competent ones underestimate themselves. Some other studies (Ryvkin et al., 2012; Krajč and Ortmann, 2008) not only support this, but their results have, in fact, brought the opposite effect: during a task that was too difficult, the incompetent people estimated their abilities better than the competent ones. However, Dunning and his colleagues have more or less refuted all the criticisms (see Kruger and Dunning, 2002; Ehrlinger et al., 2008; Schloesser et al., 2013), and even though the dispute is persisting and there are still many things that need to be clarified, it seems that we can see this psychological phenomenon, as it was described by Kruger and Dunning, as valid.

As it is the case with every phenomenon, this one has also found, in addition to the critics, many supporters and some people use it to make a point whenever possible. Often also in a situation, where the person himself or herself became a victim of this effect. Yarkoni (2010) warns us that not everything that is labelled as Dunning–Kruger effect these days is really the case, and corrects one frequent myth of popular psychology magazines – Dunning–Kruger effect does not claim that the incompetent ones see themselves as more competent than the competent ones. In other words, a fool does not think that he or she is cleverer than an educated person. Quite the opposite: despite the huge overestimation of their own abilities, they still rank themselves below the most competent ones. A fool does not know that he or she is stupid, but at the same time they do not see themselves as people ranking among the highest quartile.

HOW CAN WE FIGHT THIS?

It looks a bit hopeless. A fool not only does not know, that he or she is a fool, but also because of the fact that a person is a fool, they will remain stupid because they cannot admit that they are stupid. However, there exist at least one way out – that is knowledge, or re-qualification (Schloesser et al., 2013). When one group in the original study was allowed to do a brief 10-minute course of logical thinking, the self-assessment of their performance was more realistic. In Dunning’s words (Kruger and Dunning, 1999), “The way to make incompetent individuals realise their own incompetence is to make them competent.”

It seems that the more people know, the more they realize how little they know in reality. In other words, the more people know about a certain issue, the more they realize how complicated, unexplored and extensive it is, and how many things they do not understand or know yet.

In addition to the knowledge already mentioned, we cannot omit feedback. We have already said that feedback helps the competent people more than the incompetent ones – however, it is necessary to understand that for the competent people it is positive feedback because it tells them how much better they are than they though. It would be interesting to confront the competent people with a fictitious reality, give them negative feedback and observe whether they accept it better than incompetent people. However, some optimistic studies (Krajč and Ortmann, 2008) hope that even negative feedback, if given correctly, can increase the incompetent people’s accuracy in self-assessment.

Now you know why once a fool means always a fool, and how difficult, if not impossible, it is to help them. Now you know why the incompetent people see themselves as competent. Maybe you already understand the people you spent your time with trying to explain something to them in vain, and also the armchair experts who are abundant on the internet. You might even realize that you are not infallible and that you do not have to be better-than-average all the time and that even you might be influenced by the Dunning–Kruger effect. At the end, I cannot leave out the words of the Renaissance thinker, humanist and sceptic Michel de Montaignewhich describe the real nature of incompetence in such an ingenious way, and which are the best possible ending of this work: “Being always right is a sign of foolishness.”

Translation: Patrik Míša ( pmisa@phil.muni.cz)

Sources

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23. 23. The picture in the introduction available at <http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/businessman-closed-eyes-closes-his-ears-half-length-portrait-screams-isolated-white-concept-noise-stress-37346168.jpg>