"The Ignorance of Arrogance"

There's a story in Disney's 1940 animated feature film Fantasia (actually, the only part of the entire movie that I really ever enjoyed watching while growing up) that is based upon a classic poem ("Der Zauberlehrling") by the German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, called "The Sorcerer's Apprentice".  The story (one of my favorites, which I have used in a previous post from 2016 in which you can read the entire poem) was originally supposed to be a cartoon for Disney's Silly Symphonies starring Mickey Mouse (apparently the cartoon was supposed to revitalize the character, as audiences had grown bored with the mouse!).  However, with a growing budget for the short film, Walt and Roy Disney decided to turn it into the full-length feature film Fantasia, which would contain other short animated features matched with classical music pieces.  

In "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," Mickey Mouse plays an apprentice who grows tired of fetching water by pail, so he casts a spell that enchants a broom to do the work for him.  Unfortunately, he doesn't know the spell to stop the broom from bringing in more water.  He attempts to destroy the broom with an axe, but all the pieces form new enchanted brooms.  As an entire army of brooms carry pails of water and flood the castle, the sorcerer returns and casts the proper spell to restore good order.

Clearly, Mickey Mouse the young apprentice was in over his head.  He thought he knew more than he really did, and his overconfidence nearly led to a disaster.  In my last post, I introduced the cognitive bias known as the Dunning-Kruger effect, one of the themes in the poem and cartoon story above.  Individuals don't even know recognize that they are overconfident.  As David Dunning reportedly said, "The first rule of the Dunning-Kruger club is you don't know you're a member of the Dunning-Kruger club."  We are ignorant to our arrogance.

Over the winter break, I sat on a beach and read Wharton professor Adam Grant's most recent book, Think Again.  He asked a couple of fairly straightforward questions in a chapter called "The Armchair Quarterback and the Impostor: Finding the Sweet Spot of Confidence":

1. When did English become the official language of the United States?

2. Why were women burned at the stake in Salem?

3. What job did Walt Disney have before he drew Mickey Mouse?

4. On which spaceflight did our astronauts see the Great Wall of China from space?

5. Why does eating candy affect how kids behave?

Before you read any further, please take a moment and try to answer these questions.  How confident are you in your answers?  Actually, the United States does not have an official language.  The women who were believed to be witches weren't burned at the stake, they were hanged.  Walt Disney didn't draw Mickey Mouse, one of his animators named Ub Iwerks did.  Despite what you read on the Internet, you actually can't see the Great Wall of China from outer space.  And finally, sugar doesn't make kids hyperactive.  I bet that you were fairly confident in your answers, right?  Even if you didn't know the exact answer, you probably recall hearing the question and the corresponding answer before.  The Dunning-Kruger Effect is everywhere it seems, and we are completely naïve to its existence (for more discussion, see my post from last year, "Success is a lousy teacher...").

In my last post, I also introduced a concept first described by Carmen Sanchez and David Dunning (yes, the same one) known as the "Beginner's Bubble Hypothesis" (see also a related model, known as the Four Stages of Competence).  This hypothesis was based upon a set of experiments that involved the zombie apocalypse and suggests that novices start out quite cautiously as they are not yet confident in their own abilities.  However, with a little knowledge and/or experience, the degree of confidence increases and surpasses their level of competence.  With a little more knowledge and experience, things self-correct and the degree of confidence matches the level of competence.  

Unfortunately, the relationship between confidence and competence is weak at best.  Studies have shown that people rate leaders based upon their degree of confidence.  However, a little dose of humility is a key ingredient too.  Adam Grant said, "Leadership is not boasting about what you know.  It's having the confidence to admit what you don't know.  You don't need to assure people that you have all the answers.  They just want to know that you've committed to finding a solution - and capable of guiding a group toward it."  More about this in my next post.