How would you answer this question?

Linda is 31 years old, single, outspoken, and very bright. She majored in philosophy. As a student, she was deeply concerned with discrimination and social justice issues and participated in anti-nuclear demonstrations. Which is more probable?

A. Linda is a bank teller.
B. Linda is a bank teller and is active in the feminist movement.

Psychologists Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman asked test subjects to respond to this thought experiment, which has come to be known as the “Linda the Bank Teller Case”. Over 80 percent of the subjects (who all had varying degrees of knowledge of statistics) chose B, which is demonstrably wrong.

Given the choices, that Linda is a bank teller or bank teller active in the feminist movement, and that the latter are a subset of the former, then there has to be a higher probability that A is correct. Inductive reasoning, however, causes us to believe Linda’s background is relevant to the probability calculation – that “it only makes sense” that she’s feminist bank teller. Some people would insist that choice is correct, when it’s logically impossible for it to be.

Choosing B as the answer exemplifies intuition overriding analysis, a tendency we all experience. Many admire “multi-taskers,” individuals who seem able to handle numerous demands at once. A hypothesis suggests that women are better at multi-tasking than men. Outwardly, some colleagues seem to manage multiple responsibilities effortlessly. However, according to Clifford Nass of Stanford University, this is not the case. His study expected that multi-taskers would excel in at least one aspect of their work, but he found the opposite.

His research indicated that those people who thought they were efficient multi-taskers were terrible at it. They could not ignore irrelevant information. They could not keep useful information organized in their mind and they had great difficulty shifting from task to task. The latter imposes a type of cognitive load that interferes with our ability to focus our attention. In short, while many people pride themselves on their productivity in the face of a torrent of demands, scientific research does not support their intuition.

These examples of intuition letting us down can be neutralized if we’re skeptical of our instinctive response to a problem. Once we alert ourselves to the fact that the answer seems too obvious, then we can stop and conduct a systemic review of the issue.

Not everyone, alas, is capable of that.

There are people who are convinced of abilities they do not have. They repeatedly make errors because their lack of ability to accomplish tasks and to realize that they are failing arises from the same source. Psychology professors David Dunning and Justin Kruger (both at Cornell University at the time) described that sort of behaviour in a paper entitled “Unskilled and unaware of it: How difficulties in recognizing one’s own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments”, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (Vol. 77(6), December 1999, pp 1121 – 1134). This gave rise to the term “the Dunning-Kruger Effect” or, less politely, “Clueless Incompetence”.

Sometimes “inflated self-assessments” manifest themselves in embarrassing ways. The 80s music phenomenon Madonna was asked her view of Lady Gaga. She characterized Lady Gaga’s performances as “reductive”. She then explained to the interviewer in condescending terms what the word means.

However, reductive makes no sense in the context. She probably meant “derivative”. It’s not a major offense to mistake one word for another. But to attempt to use your faulty knowledge to embarrass someone is both cringeworthy and small-minded.

If Dunning-Kruger were limited to frothy interviews with faded pop stars there would be little reason to care. But it is dangerous when people in authority demonstrate it. For example, in 2018, one of (erstwhile Senate candidate) Roy Moore’s spokespeople explained to a CNN reporter that Moore is not anti-Muslim when he says that Muslims should not serve in Congress. All Moore is doing, says the spokesperson, is pointing out the logical consequences of not being able to swear on a Christian bible to take a seat in Congress. When the interviewer correctly points out that there is no requirement to swear on a bible, the spokesperson offers a flimsy response (Well, I did! And Donald Trump did!) before sitting speechless and open-mouthed for an embarrassingly long time, as the interviewer says “Did you not know that?”

The frequency and extent to which we find the Dunning-Kruger effect is increasing, it seems to me. Very often it’s in the form of an opinion that expresses a firm conviction about an issue with no supporting evidence and, in some cases, considerable contrary evidence. The expression, “rarely right, but never uncertain” has wide application these days. It is my impression that it’s almost impossible to have a rational, informed discussion in any venue – television studio, common room, classroom, dinner table, pub, coffee shop, and especially online.

And I expect you may be thinking: “Who made you the judge of all things proper and rational? Aren’t you just as subject to the Dunning-Kruger Effect?” My answer is, “I dunno.” There are some things I’m good at, and there are many things I’m not good at. And there are smart, well-educated people that I listen to and read that remind me, without consciously trying, of my limitations.

I can live with that. Since I’ve got no choice.