There are over 300 cognitive biases that all humans access unconsciously and over 300 unconscious social influences (https://safetyrisk.net/mapping-social-influence-strategies/) that affect every social relationship. You would think that an industry like safety would be interested in these?
The trouble is, some of these social and cognitive biases are encouraged by an industry that would rather ‘tell’ than learn. One of these biases is called the Dunning-Kruger Effect.
When an industry indoctrinates you that you know everything, it’s difficult to know that you have much to learn. When you are indoctrinated as an authority to tell, why should one ask questions and listen/learn? This enables Safety to walk on the job and tell a plumber with 30 year’s experience that he’s not doing his job safely. This enables Safety to walk in on site, police PPE and ignore high risks that they have no clue about. This enables engineers to lecture people on culture and yet have not a clue of what culture is.
We all know what the Dunning-Kruger Effect is and it is most often realised in adolescence when we decide that our parents are stupid. There’s nothing quite like the expertise of a 16 year-old telling an adult about their wisdom. How amazing when we become an adult ourselves how we slowly realise our parents were not that stupid after all. There’s a neat little semiotic that helps us understand this: https://9gag.com/gag/a4RAMEv
Dunning-Kruger sounds like this: ‘I don’t know anything about social psychology, religious studies, semiotics, critical theory, anthropology, ethics, linguistics or poetics but I know you are wrong’. Dunning-Kruger is much like taking a knife to a gun-fight. The only trouble is, the attacker thinks the gun won’t work.
One of the funniest experiences I ever had on a job was sitting at a table for smoko where a church-going safety advisor decided to lecture me about religious studies! The only way to deal with such situations is to not waste time and find a better table to have a coffee.
It’s hard to know what you don’t know, which is why in the past 20 years of writing about SPoR I rarely get a question for learning. Most of the time I receive comment telling me what I don’t know or telling about Safety or a telling comment on style. All of this demonstrates is that Safety has little thirst to learn what it doesn’t know and little passion for open enquiry. It’s even more laughable when people dish negative comments about being negative!
It is amazing that few actually read a blog but rather read into a blog.
Incompetent people cannot know they are incompetent (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-dunning-kruger-effect-isnt-what-you-think-it-is/).
The best way to confront the Dunning-Kruger Effect is by creating cognitive dissonance and by focusing time on people who want to learn. In cognitive dissonance one either choses to defend incompetence or moves out of defence to learning. I have mapped how Cognitive Dissonance works here: https://safetyrisk.net/change-in-safety-and-cognitive-dissonance/
There is nothing more important in any qualification than to teach a thirst for education and learning, as well as a disposition to be Transdisciplinary. These are not a party of any safety qualification.
Dunning-Kruger Effect is also very selective. Very few people lecture their surgeon with 15 years of full-time study and 15 years of experience about how to do their work. Safety doesn’t lecture an anaesthetist how to be safe (especially when they are unconscious). But when Safety steps into Ethnology or Anthropological discussion it becomes an expert.
You can read about Dunning-Kruger Effect here:
- https://www.demenzemedicinagenerale.net/images/mens-sana/Dunning_Kruger_Effect.pdf
- https://www.researchgate.net/publication/12688660_Unskilled_and_Unaware_of_It_How_Difficulties_in_Recognizing_One%27s_Own_Incompetence_Lead_to_Inflated_Self-Assessments
The trouble with the Dunning-Kruger Effect is that many in safety claim expertise they don’t have and are so self-deluded actually believe their own lies. I see this most often in the associations. The most important attribute to safety associations is political loyalty to the association because criticism is deemed wrong. On this basis the associations select sources of information they like but are incompetent. The best example of this is the AIHS Body of Knowledge Chapter on Ethics, you couldn’t write such amateurish incompetent goop if one tried.
Unfortunately, Safety gives advice that is completely wrong but because it tells boldly, must be believed. This is how Safety tells people things are true, when they are false (https://safetyrisk.net/declaring-what-is-by-what-isnt-hop-as-traditional-safety/ ). After all, if you criticise the club you must be anti-the-club.
It’s so amusing to observe Safety give advice on the Law, Ethics, Culture or any one of the many Social Sciences, with no expertise in any of it. Apparently engineering makes one a great psychologist.
If you want to learn outside of the mono-disciplinarity of safety then your journey can start as easily as asking a question for learning.
Dr Rob Long
Latest posts by Dr Rob Long (see all)
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