Analyses of the subjects’ ratings revealed three varieties of stupid mistakes. The first is when a person’s confidence goes beyond their skill, as when a Pittsburgh man robbed two banks in broad daylight without wearing a disguise, believing that lemon juice he had rubbed on his face would make him invisible to security cameras.

　　The confidence-skill disconnection has been named the Dunning-Kruger effect, after a study by social psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger. Dunning and Kruger had Cornell undergraduates perform tests of humor, logic, and grammar, and then rate how well they think they performed compared to other subjects in the study. The worst performing subjects, whose scores put them in the 12th percentile, estimated that they had performed in the 62nd percentile. Summarizing the findings, Dunning noted, “Poor performers—and we are all poor performers at some things—fail to see the flaws in their thinking or the answers they lack.” When we think we are at our best is sometimes when we are at our objective worst.

　　As any number of political scandals illustrate, the second type of stupid mistake involves impulsive acts—when we seem unable to keep our behavior in check. In the scandal that became known as Weinergate, former U.S. representative Anthony Weiner sent blue texts and pictures of himself to women he met on Facebook. (After resigning, Weiner continued his cyber-dalliances, and then fell prey to the Dunning-Kruger effect when he overestimated his support in the 2016 New York City mayoral primary; he received 5% of the vote.)

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