While clicking around the Internet over the weekend I found myself on the Cognitive Bias page on Wikipedia, which is incredibly interesting. Um. Unless of course I’m just fooling myself.
Anyway, eventually I found my way to a page about the Dunning-Kruger effect. Have you heard of this?
The basic theory is that when people are incompetent at something they tend to lack the ability to realize it and they overrate their abilities relative to others. Meanwhile, people who actually are good at something tend to underrate their abilities and may as a result suffer from lack of confidence.
It got me thinking of all those insanely talented writers out there in fits of despair thinking they’re not any good. Could it be that they’re just suffering from a little Dunning-Kruger effect?
Take it away Wikipedia!
The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which “people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it”. The unskilled therefore suffer from illusory superiority, rating their own ability as above average, much higher than in actuality; by contrast the highly skilled underrate their abilities, suffering from illusory inferiority. This leads to a perverse result where less competent people will rate their own ability higher than more competent people. It also explains why actual competence may weaken self-confidence because competent individuals falsely assume that others have an equivalent understanding. “Thus, the miscalibration of the incompetent stems from an error about the self, whereas the miscalibration of the highly competent stems from an error about others.”
So, uh…I wonder how you find out which one you are???
Interesting…
That explains why rubbish writers have the biggest egos.
Okay, so I tend to think everything I write sucks. But I'm fine with that thinking…it always makes me keep trying to improve, anyway. And I'd rather think I suck then be utterly convinced I rule the writing universe… O_O
Is this why I think I suck so much at writing and yet never want to give up on it? Oh, phew, thought something was really wrong with me.
And yet, incompetent writers, no matter how great they think they are, will still be incompetent and turning out crap work. BUT! They might have more luck getting published because their "illusory superiority" will keep them submitting manuscripts long after the less confident but more talented writer will have given up. So…does that mean more bad writing reaches the market while the brilliant writer burn up their best work in despair? Maybe so.
Interesting. I definitely lack confidence in my writing (yay?) so I'm constantly having to tell myself things like, "If I really sucked, I wouldn't have an agent," or "If I really sucked, my beta readers would tell me (wouldn't they?!)". Nice to know I might have a complex.
🙂
Explains why vanity publishers are profitable. "The publishing companies just don't understand my genius!"
Oh dear, so now I have even more reason to doubt myself.
Not only do I question my ability, but now I have to wonder if I suffer this affliction.
Sigh
Finally, a name for what I like to call "American Idol syndrome."
This describes my husband perfectly- he is a freakin' genius at his job but he constantly underrates himself. It drives me nuts! Even after i forward this to him he won't believe in his abilities- oh well!
Not only him same with me.
I do know I've gotten less confident the more I've written — but that's probably b/c I'm more aware of the industry than anything else (though I'd like to think it's the DuKE 🙂
Ah, what a fascinating subject! Especially because there's more than a grain of truth to the poet Randall Jarrell's peppery quote that "The novel is a prose narrative of some length that has something wrong with it."
There's a pretty good blog called The Rejecter (writer, reads slush to pay the bills) where he made an interesting comment last week: after writing something and editing for a year, "it's still not in the best shape it could be, but it may be in the best shape I'm capable of making it."
The longer I have written, the more I try to listen to a quiet voice that tells me if a scene isn't pulling its weight, or is slowing down the story, or could be replaced with a quick line or two of back-story.
In writing, there should be no such thing as "good enough." There ought to be only, as good as I could make it — and then I listened to my smart beta readers.
Sometimes I think I rock.
Sometimes I think I suck.
Sometimes I doubt. Sometimes I don't.
What does that mean?
Yes, I've heard of that study, and it is terrifying.
agirlandaboy-
Um. Well, as someone with a book coming out next year I'd like to think it's a matter of setting aside the pangs of self-doubt.
I learned this in my sociology class but I never thought to apply it to writing. Hmm…
I think I'm a terrible, terrible writer. Yes, a terrible writer. So bad, in fact, that I haven't even tried to find an agent yet. :O)
I find this idea encouraging!
Maybe all is not lost! I had a major attack of the "am-I-crazies" this weekend, so this post is well timed.
I'll go try to pull the shreds of my writing confidence back together again…
Yikes. I'll put my book up against anyone's, but my performing skills… nope. Don't have that level of confidence. Despite this post, I doubt I'm really a better performer than writer.
Wow.
That makes so much sense with some other people I know. For example, one person I know, who had at a point that she had no professional experience to speak of, declared herself–at that point–to be the best in her field.
And many people I know who are so insecure have such depths.
(I think they have historically been referred to as "late bloomers.")
Am lack confidence writting everyday ,this issues already create heart problem for me. Am always panic ,unable to talk about my problem with someone because people with start see where you lack and use it against you.
I hope one day I can get someone to put me though. I believe everything has solutions. Very sad
I visit blogs for motivation to keep pressing on with my writing – this one's another good one!
I recently tried my hand at a new genre of writing I'd never tried before. I think it turned out rather well.
Uh-oh.
Good to know we're all disturbed in one way or another.
"…competent individuals falsely assume that others have an equivalent understanding."
This explains why my brilliant husband simply cannot BELIEVE that others cannot accomplish a fraction of what he does. I think competent people of reasonable ego sizes tend to normalize what they accomplish: "Well, if I can do it, it can't be that hard." When it fact it is hard, and there is a definitive accomplishment. Throw in there the inherently emotional business that writing is, and you have a recipe for otherwise competent, confident people to suffer crippling bouts of self-doubt.
This is also one of the reasons I believe in, and actively pursue, a positively reinforcing community of writers. It's the only thing to combat the "I am crazies" and keep going, trudging ahead.
I keep putting off seeking an agent, convincing myself that I just need to keep editing and editing…
Brilliant. I've always noticed it's the pompous writers with the biggest egos and overblown vocabularies who turn out to be not as great at you'd think. Now I know why!
I started writing with a certain arrogance and ignorance. It wasn't until I learned how to write that I started doubting my ability. Same with swimming and I've been competing for years and years and years.
Couldn't there be some self-selection here? After all, if you're bad at something and you know you're bad at it, you aren't likely to keep pursuing it. (See: me, drawing) It's only the bad people who think they are good who are trying at all. Whereas, if you do have some ability, you're likely to get enough positive feedback along the way to allow you to survive with less innate confidence.
This was well-timed. I can now feel a little better about feeling that my my novel has too many problems to fix. Thanks.
In addition, I think the highly skilled have a better understanding of how much more there is to learn in their field. This, of course, applies to anyone in any field. The incompetents have no grasp of this, and it's one of the factors that often contributes to their continuing stagnation.
I wrote about ten screenplays before I accidentally wrote my first book. I'd say I was inoculated against this!
But I have felt the converse. It harms my writing in a different way: I think readers are well onto me, see my direction as hackneyed, and pointlessly complicate things. Urgh.
In my spiritual reading, I often find that saints/extremely religious themselves the least worthy. This also applies. Very interesting…
Daisy – I think that might well apply to writing, but less to other areas. Only if you're really driven, do you last any time in this field, but over-confident incompetents (as well as under-confident competents) persist all kinds of businesses.
Wow. Say that five times fast.
But my question is, which is the cause and which is the effect? Perhaps bad writers are bad because they think they're awesome so they aren't working hard to get better. ("Why bother trying to improve, right? I'm already a genius!") Meanwhile, the less confident writers are working their butts off to get better ("I totally suck, so I am going to have to put a lot more work into this!") and thus, they do get better, and become excellent writers.
Can you tell that I like to put more faith in hard work that in inherent talent?
Perhaps those with illusiory superiority syndrome are better sales people, hence the odd "art" sold for very large sums. People are now selling cross bred backyard dogs for higher prices than purebreds from careful breeders. My friends' daughter just paid $1, 500 for a labradoodle with a cocker father??! All salesmanship.
I'm a terrible salesman. Maybe I should be glad!
Ergo Dan Brown keeps foisting his books on us while J.D Salinger spent fifty years locked in his house?
I hit a stage very early in a new story, usually midway through the second chapter, where I decide it is going to be brilliant. Then I take a rest pick up Irene Nemirovsky or Tolstoy or Hem and suddenly realise that I can't write. It's like a blinding light illuminating all the flaws and all the problems with my writing and my style. I spend the rest of the process with the sole aim of making it not suck too badly.
This raises many questions about why we write. Does the fact that someone can recognise good writing mean that with years of work they may one day be able to do it? Or is it something you're born with or not? And how do you know whether you're your own worst critic or whether you're just honest?
I guess the thing is if you enjoy it you will continue doing it whether or not anyone ever reads it.
It also seems that many really insightful people in many fields delay "going for it" because of this.
And others, thank goodness, keep studying, learning, and so on long after they have been awarded a degree, license, or professional status.
Perhaps it is their insecurity that keeps them striving forward, but we so want our doctors, pilots, bridge builders to keep up with new knowledge.
Look what has happened to too many inexperienced pilots, thinking that with just a pilot's license, that they could fly at night over the ocean, for example.
word verification: suredli
(suredly – as in he was suredly of hisself)
My writing sucks, but I still submit it.
I know writers who write awesome prose, but they don't submit. They're afraid of rejection. Or maybe it's self-confidence.
I'm with Gretchen — hard work is the way, otherwise you have to be born into your job, right? As for Daisy's comment, it reminds me of talking to my son circa 8 yrs old ("I'm not good at X. I don't want to do X. For X, substitute baseball, hiking, math, etc). If you only pursue the things you know you're good at, an awful lot of the world is closed-off to you right from the get-go. You need to find out if, with some hard work, you can become good at something.
(And there are writers whose books all seem like the same one written over and over, ala formula, while others keep surprising and delighting or confounding us as they grow.)
Firstly, anyone who's hung round writers conferences know this without trying. 🙂
I feel more for the writers who overestimate their abilities, actually, because they are unable to learn. I think it's possible that the better writers who think they suck continue to improve because they think they suck.
I've observed that.
I think they only cure for either extreme is lots of experience.
Loved it! Thanks for sharing. 😉
This is what is meant by 'The more you learn the less you know'.
It took getting my master title in chess to fully realize just how bad I am at chess.
Well, that makes me feel a little better! Every time I'm told that I shouldn't be seeking an agent if I'm not 100% confident in my story, I think, "… well, what if I worked really hard and want to give it a shot, but would be utterly shocked if an agent wanted to represent me?"
I think there might be a writer behind this theory. I like it!
Side note — I think this theory might also relate to this year's March Madness. The Big East really thought it was the cat's meow, and we all know how that turned out (I'm looking at you, Seth Davis)!
This theory also gives pause to consider how to care and tend and nurture the insecure in our society.
What if deep down you feel worthless, but you've been encouraged to have confidence in your ability? Or, what if over the years you've learned to stop beating yourself up and give confidence a try?
This sort of puts a lot more pressure on those who've lacked self-esteem in the past, but who've made an effort to stop self-hating. Moreover, this sort of information makes every wannabe want to flip the "I don't want to admit that I might suck" switch, and lie about having a lack of confidence just to boost their egos even more.
Some people that exhibit confidence have a right to be proud. Some people don't. In my personal experience I've seen more people with inflated egos claim that they are terrible than those who truly know what they are doing.
For me… How can I even tell? Whether something is good or bad is largely subjective anyway. Only one thing is certain; I absolutely love to write, and I want to write well, so I try the best I can. Now I'm supposed to feel bad if I feel good about something I've written?
This is crazy talk.
Of course, Mr. Bransford, you do know that everyone who replies to this is going to claim they suck now, in hopes that you will perceive them all as brilliant.
Que can of worms…
Sounds like a back handed complement either way.
I used to think if I could do something, anybody could do it. Then, life clobbered me to a degree I can't even think about right now and out of sheer self-preservation I changed my view of myself. I became my own dear friend and witnessed how amazing I can be sometimes.
Humility needs the friend of Compassion – give it to yourself today.
I was going to post quite a detailed comment here (because this crosses over into my profession) but common sense won the day and I deleted it before I could bore you all to tears.
Suffice to say that this sort of effect, combined with some self analysis – say through a cognitive psychological tool such as Johari Window, (simple yet really effective to use) plus an emotional intelligence tool ideally, can go a long way to helping us realize our true potential, in all regards, writing included.
I'd like to say more, but I'm trying to restrain myself. Ok, one more thing, sorry. If you look at the Johari Window, or for those who know it, the 3rd and 4th quadrants (you don't know what you know and you don't know what you don't know) are the most amazing in terms of helping us unlock/unleash/find out so much about ourselves and therefore help to target/identify/enhance our desired capability areas.
Ok, I'm stopping now. Really.