I needed a giggle, you funny people you. This thread has been quite helpful.
I only WISH we had the superignorant contained to Congress; unfortunately, untrue (as should be rather obvious when you think about how they managed to become a legislative representative, but …).
Any hierachary is like a tree full of monkeys. The monkeys on the top branches look down and all they see are smiling faces. The monkeys on the bottom branches look up and all they can see are a bunch of assholes.
PSA time: I’d like everyone to take the opportunity to read carefully. The effect is a bias where the person rates themselves much higher than is accurate. It does not say the person rates himself higher than his peers. The illusory superiority is his imagined self versus his actual self, not his imagined self versus other people.
In the actual study, you had people who ranked last on the test thinking they ranked in the 30th percentile (or so). They didn’t think they scored highly. They just didn’t think they did that badly. Conversely, the high scorers knew they did well. They just underestimated how well, and the top 10% thought they were in the top 20% or so.
Just saying…the Dunning Kruger effect is not “dumb people think they’re smart and smart people think they’re dumb.” It’s “No one thinks they’re the extreme.”
In the actual study, in every domain tested, the bottom quartile thought they ranked above average. (On average.) You’re partially right, but I think a more useful version than “No one thinks they’re the extreme.” is “Many dumb people think they’re above average.”