The Dunning-Kruger effect observes that people with low ability tend to overestimate it.
But there are times I’ve observed the opposite: people who are really smart, who are really hard to convince when they’re wrong about something. Often, the thing they’re wrong about is in an area outside their expertise.
One example: a lifelong friend of mine (“J”) is indeed really smart. He is literally a practicing brain surgeon, and used to be a rocket scientist (sorta: he developed artificial intelligence for NASA). He is also an accomplished musician and composer–we have collaborated off and on over the years. A long time ago, I was at his home watching MTV with him, when the video for the song “Cryin’” by Aerosmith came on. He listened for a moment, and asked if I remembered who had done the song originally. When I answered that it was not a cover, but a new, original song by Aerosmith, he disagreed. At the end of the song, when the credits came on, stating that it was written by three members of Aerosmith, and was on their recently-released album, he still insisted he had heard the song before. I suggested that he was responding to the fact that the song was catchy, and the melody contained a lot of pop cliches, which would make it seem more familiar the first time you heard it. But he was insistent he had heard the entire song, years before. We dropped the matter for lack of importance.
Another example: a childhood friend of mine (“B”) is a brilliant, very successful attorney. She is a very outspoken capital-L Libertarian and incessant proponent of the flat tax, neither of which I will comment on. What I will comment on is the fact that she is an equally vocal Truther, frequently showing me links to analyses by purported experts claiming that, e.g., WTC7 was destroyed by explosives planted in the building, not by parts of the towers falling on it as the government claims. I confess that I haven’t really delved into these analyses, having concluded long ago that the events of 9/11 were caused by terrorists crashing hijacked jetliners into the Twin Towers. Another reason I haven’t delved into them is that most of the people I’ve known who have made such claims did not impress me as being very credible or smart. But “B” is certainly an exception to this.
Anyone else observed this?
Also, has this phenomenon–that smart people may be harder to convince that they’re wrong than are less-smart people–been compared and reconciled with the Dunning-Kruger effect by any psychologists?