Summary of “We Are All Confident Idiots”

The article “We Are All Confident Idiots” written by David Dunning was published by Pacific Standard Magazine on October 27, 2014.  This piece of writing is under the magazine’s Social Justice tag with the intended audience being the well-educated. In the article, the author is explaining the Dunning-Krugar effect which documents the fact that the incompetent are unable to recognize how incompetent they actually are. Many people who are knowledgeable of a topic or are just completely wrong about something, often show a great amount of confidence when conveying their responses. Humans tend to take pride in being correct and educated, so even when they are the complete opposite, they will put on a veil of confidence to hide their ignorance. Although one may think this theory does not apply to them, it most likely does as ignorance is not always recognized by oneself. Dunning provides some lighthearted evidence in the beginning from Jimmy Kimmel’s “Lie Witness News.” However, he then proceeds to explain research from more real world experiences, such as people’s statements during Obama’s presidency and other experiments held by both Krugar and Dunning. This source is relevant to the Writing and Communications course as it shows a well organized written piece that includes sufficient research to back up the argument.