Dunning-Kruger Effect Revisited.

You might be familiar with the Dunning-Kruger-Effect - which can be more or less summarised as "people who are bad at something are so bad at the thing that they are convinced they are really good at it, and can't even see how bad they are". 

There's been some more tests done, with the results and the conclusions published at clearerthinking.org. The short version is that there's additional effects, both statistical and psychological, that may skew results when trying to learn about people's self-evaluation. 

I found it an interesting read, even though I missed a few of the effects that I personally have found to happen, at least as anecdotal evidence. At least in quite a few cases, I have found people who are extremely good at what they are doing to more or less downplay their skills. One reason for that, as far as I see it, is that they know the field so well to be very much aware of what they do not know. Also, very good people tend to have contact, and possibly compare themselves, to people who are in the same league, which can potentially skew self-assessment. Another reason for this can be a desire to stay under the radar. If you hop out and about telling everyone that you are really, really good at programming JavaScript, guess what will happen sooner or later? Exactly. So to avoid having to defend yourself from extra work, or having to do extra work, keeping mum about your skills is sometimes just the thing.

If you have thoughts - or personal experience with something that could have been a Dunning-Kruger - let me know!