Comment by JohnBooty
5 years ago
Not sure if anybody has mentioned this flaw yet, but this supposed "Dead Sea Effect," if real, would rely upon the least-talented engineers being able to accurately asses their own talent level.
This is contrary to the well-known Dunning-Kruger effect which, unlike the "Dead Sea Effect", has at least been backed by some studies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
"[Dunning-Kruger effect] is related to the cognitive
bias of illusory superiority and comes from the
inability of people to recognize their lack of ability.
Without the self-awareness of metacognition, people
cannot objectively evaluate their competence or
incompetence"
Also, as others have said...
Even if the low-skilled engineers were able to recognize their lack of talent -- which they often cannot -- this "effect" would only hold true, if ever, in a company where folks are actively trying to leave.
The company I work for is a pretty happy place. Whether I am the most talented person there, the least talented, or somewhere inbetween... the reason I'm there has nothing to do with a belief that I won't be able to find equivalent or better work elsewhere.
> Not sure if anybody has mentioned this flaw yet, but this supposed "Dead Sea Effect," if real, would rely upon the least-talented engineers being able to accurately asses their own talent level.
No, it only requires hiring managers from other firms to do so; better alternative prospects is sufficient to explain the effect.
> This is contrary to the well-known Dunning-Kruger effect
No, even if the prior part was wrong, it would be contrary to the popular misperception of D-K, but not the actual D-K effect [0], in which self-assessment is compressed (on both ends) toward somewhere in the third quartile, but still monotonically increasing with actual ability, such that the better people are at something the better they think they are, it's just that the bottom ~2/3 somewhat overestimate where they are in the distribution and the top ~1/3 underestimate it.
But, relevant to the situation at end, since positive self-assessment still increases with ability, even if higher self-assessment with higher real ability was needed to drive the Dead Sea effect, that would be exactly what the D-K research shows exists.
[0] https://www.talyarkoni.org/blog/2010/07/07/what-the-dunning-...