A many of you probably know, Dunning-Kruger Effect a frustrating and paradoxical psychological phenomenon whereby people who are the worst at tasks tend to significantly overestimate their knowledge and competence. Those who are most ignorant about a topic tend to form the most strongly held opinions about it. The problem is that not just that they don’t know, it’s that they’re so ignorant that they don’t even know how much they don’t know.
A climate denier, for example hears something on Fox News and thinks he now has all the knowledge he needs to dismiss global warming as a hoax. He believes he knows more than the experts in the field because he has no idea of what they do and the kind of research that goes into their findings.
Dr. David Dunning, the University of Michigan professor for whom the phenomenon is named, published an essay on the Politico website describing how the Dunning-Kruger Effect explains the popularity of Donald Trump among the uneducated.
In voters, lack of expertise would be lamentable but perhaps not so worrisome if people had some sense of how imperfect their civic knowledge is. If they did, they could repair it. But the Dunning-Kruger Effect suggests something different. It suggests that some voters, especially those facing significant distress in their life, might like some of what they hear from Trump, but they do not know enough to hold him accountable for the serious gaffes he makes. They fail to recognize those gaffes as missteps.
Trump memorably stated that he loves the uneducated. That’s not surprising. The uneducated are willing to believe what they want to hear, blissfully unaware of the facts. They’re almost impossible to argue with because they think they know what they’re talking about even though they don’t. In fact, they think they know what they’re talking about because of how much they don’t.
The phenomenon applies to Trump himself. For example, during the campaign, Trump promised that he would create a health care plan that would cover everyone much more cheaply than Obamacare. It would cover pre-existing conditions and everything else. It would be beautiful health care. Then, after the election, he famously stated, “Nobody knew health care could be so complicated.” Actually, everyone who was paying attemtion knew that. Trump didn’t know and he didn’t know that he didn’t know.
The Dunning-Kruger Effect is a big reason why it’s so frustrating and futile to argue with Trump supporters. You can’t educate someone who already thinks they know it all. This is a big reason why it winning over Trump voters will be a challenge for Democrats in the 2018 election.