Dunning-Kruger Effect Experiment

By daniel chen

Dunning-Kruger effect is when people don't have enough knowledge, they might think they're smarter than average, the reason that less skilled people often think that they are high skilled is because they don't understand how much they don't know. The researcher wants to know if people really fell into it and how often fell into it.

The researcher use quiz games to do the research, this game can be separate into different part, first the researcher will tell the respondents this game is about Taiwan, if there are other 9 people playing this game where do you think you'd rank from one to ten. The second part the research will start ask question about Taiwan. The questions are:

1. Bubble tea was invented in Taiwan (t)珍珠奶茶是在台灣發明的。 正不正確？ （t）
2. The first direct democratic elections in Taiwan were in 1992 (1996)台灣第一次總統大選是在 1992 年 【民國81年】。 （1996）
3. YangMingShan is an active volcano (t)陽明山是一座活火山。 （t）
4. Cat cafes originated from Taiwan (t)世界第一間貓咪咖啡廳開在台灣。 （t）
5. Taipei 101 is currently the 7th tallest building in the world (11)臺北101現在是世界第7高的建築。 （11）
6. Taiwan has 8 national parks (9)台灣有 8 個國家公園。（9）
7. Taiwan is one of the few countries in the world with universal health care insurance (t)台灣是少數有全民健保的國家。（t）
8. Taiwan has the highest proportion of convenience stores to population in the world (Korea)台灣的便利商店對人口數的比例是世界最高的。 (Korea)
9. The words of the Taiwan National Anthem were written by Sun-Yat Sen (t)中華民國國歌的歌詞是孫中山寫的。 （t）

After the respondents finish this part the researcher will ask them how many questions do you think you can answer correctly? and of course the last part is reveal the answer.

It is hypothesized that individuals who express greater confidence (higher ranking) will score fewer correct answers, while those with lower confidence (lower ranking) will score more correct answers, base on Dunning-Kruger effect.

The results were surprising because they didn't clearly show that people who thought they knew a lot actually knew less. However, many people knew that Taiwan invented bubble tea and has healthcare for everyone.

This study tells us that sometimes people might think they know a lot but they don't always do well on quizzes. Even though we didn't see the exact Dunning-Kruger effect, we learned that knowing some important facts about Taiwan is really common.