Henry Kissinger and the Dunning-Kruger effect

While reading the many retrospective tributes (and hit pieces) about our departed friend Henry Kissinger, one of his many remembered quotables was, “To be absolutely certain about something, one must know everything or nothing about it.” It’s an excuse of sorts, often heard from people who make difficult decisions destined to be controversial, like bombing an adversary back to the negotiating table or backing a friendly dictator. Kissinger points out that certainty is elusive and often only exists in an informational vacuum.

His statement also describes those who aren’t obliged to deal with complex realities but stand on the sidelines and pass judgment without fully considering the ramifications. In that context, it sounds a lot like a corollary to my old nemesis, the Dunning-Kruger effect.

Dunning-Kruger describes a cognitive bias that occurs when individuals with a low understanding of a topic overestimate their abilities. That tendency, eloquently described by social psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger, was published in a 1999 paper titled “Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments.”

Dunning, a University of Michigan professor of psychology, and Kruger, a research scholar at New York’s Stern School of Business, were embraced by both academia and the business community when the paper appeared in the American Psychological Association’s Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. In the paper, they very aptly described how we assess our abilities and the challenges we face in recognizing our lack of skill. As someone with a childlike curiosity about the world around us and a tendency to play over my head, I run into that situation more frequently than comfort allows me to admit.

The “unknown unknowns” are where the Dunning-Kruger effect comes into play in the worst way. It’s our tendency to overestimate our knowledge, skills, or competence and naively underestimate what they indelicately call our “unconscious incompetence.” The Dunning-Kruger Effect goes beyond ignorance. It presents a meta-layer of ignorance—the ignorance of our own ignorance, the realm where we can’t possibly know what we don’t know.

We see it in sports fans high up in the stadium cheap seats, second-guessing officials on the ground. We see it in low-level workers who criticize management without the benefit of the larger organizational perspective, and too often, we see it in youth who make life-altering decisions without the benefit of lifetime experience. Personally, I notice it in talk-radio conservatives who eschew any notion of the moderation and compromise needed to influence an opposing ideology–or win an election.

That said, being optimistic about limited knowledge doesn’t always come from a bad place. There’s always a bit of euphoria that accompanies the acquisition of a new perspective, theory, or skill. There is a deserved pride in new accomplishments. There is joy in discovery. It’s not so terrible if we can just recognize the overestimation that accompanies learning.

How often do we begin a DIY project only to find that we have bitten off a bit more than we can chew? How frequently do we make a “to-do” list for the day and only complete a third of it? That’s where Dunning Kruger offers a bit of encouragement. According to their theory, it’s when we recognize the magnitude of our underestimation that we begin to understand the complexities of the subject matter.

The study shows that people who have acquired a minimal level of skill at a task tend to have a higher level of confidence than those with a moderate level of skill. Paradoxically, it shows that people who have achieved a higher level of skill have a sense of confidence moderated by their recognition of the skills they lack. Conclusion: The more we know, the less we think we know.

The positive lesson learned is that when we feel entirely befuddled by a topic, that’s when we should take heart, knowing that we are on our way to proficiency. On a darker note, it also shows us why the incompetent among us so often surpass the competent because, let’s face it, confidence is irresistible.

Given his notoriety, his diplomatic acumen, and his access to the highest levels of power, it’s hard to think of Henry Kissinger as being mired in self-doubt, but accounts of his late-night drinking sessions with Richard Nixon tell the story. Henry was right. The most complicated decisions are the hardest, the hardest decisions are least understood, and when decisions seem easy, beware.