[2026] PTE Academic Reading - Multiple Choice, Multiple Answers

The Dunning-Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which individuals with low ability, expertise, or experience regarding a certain type of task or area of knowledge tend to overestimate their ability or knowledge.This psychological phenomenon was first described in 1999 by social psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger.Their research demonstrated that poor performers in many social and intellectual domains seem largely unaware of just how deficient their expertise is.

The root cause of this effect is a dual burden faced by incompetent individuals.Not only do these individuals reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it.In other words, the skills needed to produce a correct answer are exactly the same skills needed to recognize what a correct answer is, leaving the unskilled completely blind to their own shortcomings.

Conversely, the Dunning-Kruger studies also found that highly skilled individuals often underestimate their relative competence.Experts tend to assume that tasks which are easy for them are also easy for everyone else, leading to a false consensus effect.However, when experts are given feedback about the performance of others, they quickly adjust their self-assessments, whereas incompetent individuals struggle to recognize their lack of skill even after being shown objective evidence.