This might be slightly old news but this paper is essential reading:
Unskilled and
Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One’s
Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments,
Justin Kruger and David Dunning,
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1999, Vol. 77, No. 6.,
pp. 1121-1134
People tend to hold overly favorable views of their abilities in
many social and intellectual domains. The authors suggest that this
overestimation occurs, in part, because people who are unskilled
in these domains suffer a dual burden: Not only do these people
reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their
incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it.
Across 4 studies, the authors found that participants scoring in
the bottom quartile on tests of humor, grammar, and logic grossly
overestimated their test performance and ability. Although their test
scores put them in the 12th percentile, they estimated themselves to be
in the 62nd. Several analyses linked this miscalibration to deficits in
metacognitive skill, or the capacity to distinguish accuracy from error.
Paradoxically, improving the skills of participants, and thus increasing
their metacognitive competence, helped them recognize the limitations of
their abilities
It is pretty depressing too, once the reader starts to consider the fields
of endeavour they are blissfully incompetent in.
