{{Short description|American social psychologist (born 1960)}} {{Use American English|date=May 2026}} {{Use mdy dates|date=November 2021}} {{Infobox scientist | name = David Dunning | image = <!-- filename only, no "File:" or "Image:" prefix, and no enclosing brackets --> | alt = <!-- descriptive text for use by speech synthesis (text-to-speech) software --> | caption = | birth_name = <!-- only use if different from name --> | birth_date = {{birth year and age|1960}} | birth_place = United States | death_date = <!-- {{Death date and age|YYYY|MM|DD|YYYY|MM|DD}} (DEATH date then BIRTH date) --> | death_place = | education = Michigan State University (BA) <br/>Stanford University (PhD) | other_names = | occupation = Psychologist, professor | workplaces = University of Michigan<br>Cornell University | years_active = | known_for = Dunning–Kruger effect | notable_works = | thesis_title = Situational construal and sources of social judgment | thesis_url = http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/38653265 | thesis_year = 1986 | doctoral_advisor = Lee Ross | doctoral_students = Emily Balcetis }}
'''David Alan Dunning''' (born 1960) is an American social psychologist and professor of psychology at the University of Michigan.<ref name="umich">{{cite web | url=https://lsa.umich.edu/psych/people/faculty/ddunning.html | title=David Dunning | work=University of Michigan | accessdate=June 6, 2016}}</ref> He is a retired professor of psychology at Cornell University.<ref name="cornell">{{cite web | url=https://socialsciences.cornell.edu/david-dunning/ | title=David Dunning | work=Cornell University Institute for the Social Sciences | accessdate=May 25, 2016 | archive-date=May 2, 2019 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190502134741/http://socialsciences.cornell.edu/david-dunning/ | url-status=dead }}</ref>
==Education== He received his B.A. from Michigan State University in 1982 and a Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1986, both in psychology.<ref name="umich"/><ref>{{Cite thesis |last=Dunning |first=David Alan |title=Situational construal and sources of social judgment |date=1986 |degree=Ph.D. |publisher=Stanford University |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rO5EAQAAIAAJ |language=English}}</ref>
==Research== Dunning has published more than 80 peer-reviewed papers, book chapters, and commentaries. He is well known for co-authoring a 1999 study<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Kruger|first1=J|last2=Dunning|first2=D|title=Unskilled and unaware of it: how difficulties in recognizing one's own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments.|journal=Journal of Personality and Social Psychology|date=December 1999|volume=77|issue=6|pages=1121–34|pmid=10626367|doi=10.1037/0022-3514.77.6.1121|citeseerx=10.1.1.64.2655}}</ref> with graduate student Justin Kruger after reading about the 1995 Greater Pittsburgh bank robberies in which the perpetrators wore lemon juice instead of masks, thinking it would make them invisible to security cameras.<ref>{{cite journal | url=https://hbr.org/2005/12/those-who-cant-dont-know-it | title=Those Who Can't, Don't Know It | journal=Harvard Business Review | date=December 2005 | accessdate=May 25, 2016 | author=Abrahams, Marc}}</ref><ref name="The New York Times">{{cite web |url=https://archive.nytimes.com/opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/the-anosognosics-dilemma-1/ |title=The Anosognosic's Dilemma: Something's Wrong but You'll Never Know What It Is (Part 1) |first=Errol |last=Morris |author-link=Errol Morris |date=June 20, 2010 |website=The New York Times |access-date=October 16, 2022 |archive-date=August 27, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220827145320/https://archive.nytimes.com/opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/the-anosognosics-dilemma-1/ |url-status=live }}</ref> This study showed that people who performed the lowest at certain tasks, such as judging humor, grammar, and logic, significantly overestimated how good they were at these tasks. This study has since given rise to what is known as the Dunning–Kruger effect, a cognitive bias in which people mistakenly assess their cognitive ability as greater than it is.<ref name=at>{{cite web | url=https://arstechnica.com/science/2012/05/revisiting-why-incompetents-think-theyre-awesome/ | title=Revisiting why incompetents think they're awesome | work=Ars Technica | date=May 25, 2012 | accessdate=May 25, 2016 | author=Lee, Chris}}</ref> The study also found that people who performed slightly above average at identifying how funny a given joke was tended to be the most accurate at assessing how good they were at the assigned tasks, and that those who performed the best tended to think they performed only slightly above average.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20131125-why-the-stupid-say-theyre-smart | title=The more inept you are the smarter you think you are | work=BBC Future | date=November 25, 2013 | accessdate=May 25, 2016 | author=Stafford, Tom}}</ref> In 2012, Dunning told ''Ars Technica'' that he "thought the paper would never be published" and that he was "struck just with how long and how much this idea has gone viral in so many areas."<ref name=at/>
==Positions== Dunning is the executive officer of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology and the Foundation for Personality and Social Psychology. He has also served as an associate editor of the ''Journal of Personality and Social Psychology''.<ref name="cornell"/>
== Awards == In 2021, Dunning was listed by Stanford University as being in the world's top 2% most cited psychological scientists.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Stanford University Names World's Top 2% Scientists, 2021 {{!}} U-M LSA Department of Psychology |url=https://lsa.umich.edu/psych/news-events/all-news/faculty-news/stanford-university-names-world-s-top-2--scientists--2021.html |access-date=2022-05-15 |website=lsa.umich.edu |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Citation |last=Jeroen Baas |title=August 2021 data-update for "Updated science-wide author databases of standardized citation indicators" |date=2021-10-19 |url=https://data.mendeley.com/datasets/btchxktzyw/3 |others=John P.A. Ioannidis, Kevin Boyack, Jeroen Baas |volume=3 |publisher=Elsevier BV |doi=10.17632/btchxktzyw.3 |access-date=2022-05-15}}</ref>
In 2023, he was awarded the Grawemeyer Award in Psychology.<ref>{{Cite web |title=2023-Dunning_Kruger-Recipient-Information |url=http://grawemeyer.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Unskilled-People_2023-Dunning_Kruger-Recipient-Information.pdf}}</ref>
== See also ==
* List of Ig Nobel Prize winners
==References== {{Reflist}} {{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dunning, David A.}} Category:1960 births Category:20th-century American psychologists Category:21st-century American psychologists Category:American social psychologists Category:Cornell University faculty Category:Ig Nobel laureates Category:Living people Category:Michigan State University alumni Category:Place of birth missing (living people) Category:Stanford University alumni Category:University of Michigan Department of Psychology faculty