What we really know about our abilities and our knowledge

Recently, it has become popular to state that “people hold overly favorable views of their abilities in many social and intellectual domains” [Kruger, J., & Dunning, D. (1999). Unskilled and unaware of it: how difficulties in recognising one's own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 77(6), (1999) 1121]. Research that supports this point tells only half of the story—in a manner documented by Cronbach’s [Cronbach, L. J. (1957). The two disciplines of scientific psychology. American Psychologist, 12, (1957) 671] classic article on the “two disciplines of scientific psychology.” That is, the recent research has only documented the experimental side of the scientific divide (which focuses on means and ignores individual differences). The current paper shows that research from the other side of the scientific divide, namely the correlational approach (which focuses on individual differences), provides a very different perspective for people’s views of their own intellectual abilities and knowledge. Previous research is reviewed, and an empirical study of 228 adults between 21 and 62 years of age is described where self-report assessments of abilities and knowledge are compared with objective measures. Correlations of self-rating and objective-score pairings show both substantial convergent and discriminant validity, indicating that individuals have both generally accurate and differentiated views of their relative standing on abilities and knowledge.