drugger kruger effect, a thorough investigation

47 tabs were open. one of them, somewhere between “how to deglaze a pan” and “is sleep really necessary,” was about a psychology effect i was fairly sure had a name. i typed the name into the search bar from memory. i typed drugger kruger effect. the search engine, kind as ever, asked if i meant something else. i clicked “no, that’s what i meant” because i am, by 10:18am on a wednesday, that kind of man.

then i sat there. the typo. how drugger looked next to kruger. how the typo might be more accurate than the original. so i decided, with a meeting upstairs eating carla alive and the morning still on my hands, to investigate.

drugger kruger effect: a misspelling of the dunning-kruger effect, where someone with very little skill at something is also very confident about it. the typo is not in any textbook. the typo is, however, what i have personally been demonstrating since approximately 2014.

DRUGGER. IS NOT. A WORD. AND YET.

i did not invent the typo. a barista in the corner cafe wrote it on my tuesday cup, in marker, with a smiley face. she had asked what i was reading. i said, with the confidence of a man who’d glanced at a summary in a queue, “the dunning-kruger effect.” she nodded, wrote on the cup, handed it over. by the time i got to my table the cup said drugger kruger. i did not correct her. she had a line. i had a muffin. we moved on. i thought about it for the rest of tuesday, and i’m thinking about it now, in a building that pays me to think about other things entirely.

the 47 tabs, audited live, with the typo in tab 31

i opened all 47 to count them, against my own rules. once you open the tabs you have to deal with them, and dealing with them is a separate person’s job. for the purposes of this post i will, briefly, become that person. here is the audit, no editing for dignity:

• cooking i will not do (8 tabs): “how to deglaze a pan,” “is duck fat a personality,” “easy weeknight risotto,” “what is mirepoix,” “fish sauce in pasta debate,” “egg techniques,” “the right knife for one person,” “garlic press: scam?”
• sleep i will not get (6 tabs): “is sleep really necessary,” “polyphasic sleep cult survivor,” “magnesium and the apocalypse,” “9-minute snooze: science,” “sleep mask reviews 2024,” “why am i tired”
• finance i will not handle (7 tabs): “401k vs nothing,” “what is a roth,” “credit score range explained,” “savings account interest joke,” “the unopened mail problem,” “ignorance as financial therapy,” “how to read a bank statement”
• furniture i will not assemble (4 tabs): a dresser, a bookshelf, two desks, all from the same company, none in my apartment, all in my browser
• psychology i clearly need (9 tabs): tab 23 cognitive bias meaning, tab 31 drugger kruger effect (the typo), tab 32 the correct dunning-kruger graph, tab 33 the dunning-kruger definition page, tab 34 dunning syndrome, tab 35 dunning kruger meaning, tab 36 a forum where men in t-shirts argue about it, tabs 37-38 a podcast and a youtube clip i did not play
• misc spirals (13 tabs): a dog adoption page (i cannot have a dog), a pottery waitlist, a yoga retreat (i own three yoga mats, technically), a flight to lisbon, a hotel in lisbon, eight others

tab 31 is the post. tab 31 is the joke. tab 31 is also, in a way i am uncomfortable confessing, more honest than the textbook one.

what the typo accidentally gets right

the proper spelling says: people bad at a thing tend to be confident about it, because the skill that would let them notice they’re bad is the skill they don’t have. fine. neat. tidy. behaves well in lecture halls.

the typo version, drugger kruger, suggests something different. it sounds like the effect happens to someone under the influence. and look — i am not on drugs. i am, at 10:18am on a wednesday, on coffee and slight panic. but the state the typo describes is real: too much certainty and not enough information, in conditions that have softened the part of the brain that would normally object. tired, or stressed, or four beers in, or 47 tabs deep. which describes most of us most of the time.

three small drugger kruger effect moments from my own week

moment one. on monday i told a coworker i could fix the printer. i had never fixed a printer. i had once, in 2019, watched a video about a different printer. i said it with the calm of a man who fixes printers. after my intervention the printer was more broken. someone else fixed it later. they did not say my name. they did not have to.

moment two. tuesday night, i tried to make a microwave do a thing it does not do. this is the seventh microwave, and the issue this time was not a fork — i have learned about forks — but a bowl i had been told, by myself, was “probably fine.” the bowl was not probably fine. there was a smell. the smell is mostly gone.

moment three. i argued with mom about whether sunday is the weekend or the start of the week. my position was confident and, on reflection, more of a vibe. mom said “okay, sweetie. remember to drink water.” mothers know. they don’t need to win. they win by waiting.

where the actual concept lives, for the curious

the proper spelling lives at the dunning-kruger effect, explained by someone who definitely doesn’t have it. the title is sarcastic. i have it in spades. i was sure i could write this post in 30 minutes. it is now 11:23am.

there is a longer breakdown at the dunning kruger effect definition, from a man at the bar, a piece called the dunning kruger graph, walked through by a man who is on it, and the dunning kruger definition, with help from stefan, the wine guy, who apparently has opinions on psychology too. those are the proper spellings. this post is the typo.

the unrelated hot take that turns out to be related

the verdict, and the cup

the typo is, technically, wrong. it will not appear in any psychology paper, ever, except possibly as a footnote about search-engine intent matching. it got me a muffin and a smiley face. but it did the thing the proper spelling sometimes can’t: it showed me the concept from the inside. i am the man with 47 tabs and a cup that says drugger kruger. i was not insulted. i was, briefly, seen. that’s a lot to ask of a barista on a tuesday with a marker.

my screen has been minimized twice in the last ten minutes. once was the boss walking through to the printer (still broken, it turns out). the second was nobody — i flinched at a noise from the vent. that’s the 47 tabs talking. they have, between them, more confidence than i do.

tab 31 stays open. i’ll close the other 46 someday. not today. today i have a meeting at 2pm, a third yoga mat under my couch, and the seventh microwave still smelling, faintly, of bowl.

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