I highly recommend that you check out the following article/interview:
The Anosognosic’s Dilemma: Something’s Wrong but You’ll Never Know What It Is
In it, the author interviews David Dunning, a Cornell professor, who studies social psychological. The main thrust of the Dunning-Kruger Effect is this (taken from a paper that he and Kruger wrote on the subject):
“When people are incompetent in the strategies they adopt to achieve success and satisfaction, they suffer a dual burden: Not only do they reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it. Instead … they are left with the erroneous impression they are doing just fine.”
I think that Dunning’s conclusion is spot-on. I’ve come across many people who match this description. Not necessarily in their lives generally, but definitely in certain areas (work, especially). My point in linking to this article is not to merely agree with it; rather, I’d like to link Dunning’s conclusion to a phenomenon that I (and probably you) have experienced many times.
Yes, yes, the Law of Diminishing Returns is a well-known and oft-discussed phenomenon. What’s the big deal?
The big deal (to me anyway) is applying these two concepts — the Dunning-Kruger Effect and the Law of Diminishing Returns — to that aforementioned but as yet unnamed phenomenon that we’ve all experienced. I’ll call it: The Enthusiasm Drop.
First, consider the graph I’ve drawn below (and forgive my horrible drawing skills):
This graph represents something we’ve all experienced when learning how to do something new. It could be anything; hockey, Scrabble (mentioned in the linked article), gardening, driving, learning a new language, whatever.
At first, enthusiasm is high, and it increases at an increasing rate (hence the increasing slope in the first part of the curve). As time passes, however, enthusiasm still increases, but at a decreasing rate. Eventually, it plateaus. Finally, (though not always), it decreases quickly at a steady rate.
Why is this?
A simple answer might be that people easily tire of their new things. Nicholas Carr, whose recent book about the effects that the Internet (might) be having on our brain, might say that this is especially true in the modern Internet-era. Attention spans are shorter than ever, Carr would say, and this explains why people fail to stick with new things.
Another answer might be that enthusiasm for something closely follows relative improvement since starting from nothing means that any progress at all leads to a (relatively) large increase in one’s skill level. This rate of improvement can’t possibly continue at the same or increasing pace over time, so it, of course, wanes.
I don’t think that either of these two ideas fully explains the Enthusiasm Drop, though the latter is more convincing to me than the former. I think that there is more going on here, and I think that Dunning’s ideas about the Unknown Unknowns might help explain it.
It’s pretty simple. When you first start doing something new — or even when you first start thinking about doing something new — excitement is the overriding emotion. The possibilities of this new activity are intoxicating. Crazy thoughts start filtering through your brain. Thoughts like:
- “Wow, gardening is easy! Pretty soon, I’ll be able to grow all of my own vegetables!”
- “Learning French isn’t too hard — I’ll be fluent in no time!”
- “Wow, I love playing guitar! I already know five songs — I bet that I’ll be playing in a band soon!”
You know that you’ve met people who are deeply in the throes of New Activity Excitement. And you’ve probably come across one of them months or even weeks later and found that their enthusiasm for said Activity has completely died. What happened?
My thought: Dunning’s Unknown Unknowns.
When you really suck at something, you don’t realize how much you suck. And when you start something new, you definitely suck at it.
Soon, however, you don’t suck quite so much. You make dramatic improvement at first, and the excitement mentioned above overtakes you. But then, as you spend more time doing the activity, you learn more about it. And it becomes clear that there is a lot more to the activity than you thought initially. Small details jump out at you, things that you never noticed before. You start to realize how long it might take you to become just mediocre at the activity, let alone good.
Finally, a realization hits you: You might never be as good at the activity as someone who has done it far longer than you. That sounds like a pretty obvious conclusion, but, remember how the delusions of near-term proficiency dominated your thoughts in the wave of initial euphoria and excitement. The dreams! The plans! The goals! Pretty soon, they disappear in crushing waves of disappointment and negativity.
You learned what was once unknown to you. The unknown unknowns became known. And knowing how much you don’t know — learning how much you suck — is tough to deal with.
Getting past learning the unknown unknowns of an activity takes persistence and hard work.
Take a minute to pat yourself on the back if you’ve managed to do it.
