Political superiority complex?

[bindeweede]

A study has recently been published on "belief superiority about several political topics."

Across six studies and several political topics, people who were high in belief superiority thought that they knew a great deal about these topics. However, when comparing this perceived knowledge to how much people actually knew, they found that belief-superior people were consistently overestimating their own knowledge.

"Whereas more humble participants sometimes even underestimated their knowledge, the belief superior tended to think they knew a lot more than they actually did," said Michael Hall, a psychology graduate student and the study's lead author.

This brings my mind back to the EU Referendum, when some politicians seemed to delight in dismissing the opinions of "experts". And some journalists might be accused of the same. Anyway, I doubt anyone would be surprised, though the article quoted is just a summary.

And I was thinking, is this a sort of variation of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E ... ger_effect

Anyway, here is the link from ScienceDaily.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 130756.htm

[Tony.Williams]

Hmm... well, it doesn't surprise me that people think their views are superior - after all, if they didn't, they'd presumably believe something else, would they not?

I suspect that social confidence is a factor. Those who lack confidence may be more likely to keep quiet about their beliefs.