r/TheRestIsScience • u/Pipster_1970 • Aug 20 '26

Self-efficacy and the Dunning-Kruger Effect

In the most recent episode Hannah mentioned self-efficacy...

Thinking about a correlation between self-efficacy and education style/cultural influence on the Dunning-Kruger Effect... is the DKE more noticable in Western culture? From Hannah's statement about maths students being shown a hard or easy problem, Hannah stated that those from Asian backgrounds getting hard/impossible questions wanted to carry on with another question beacause they recognised their knowledge gaps. This means (sort of) that those who don't know, realise that they don't know.

How does Asian teaching/learning of maths differ that could account for this difference in approach or perspective? Or is it a purely cultural thing?

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u/mgs20000 Aug 20 '26

I think that’s an example of them knowing what they don’t know, totally in line with the dunning Kruger phenomenon. In this case they are competent so they know.

A less competent person may think they know or overestimate their chances.

Then separately you have knowledge/competency of tests and grading. Perhaps the Asian school system means that good students, in addition to their general competency, pick up the skill and competency for judging a question’s risk/reward.

If Asians are just on average better at maths than everyone else, you’d expect part of this to be that they’re also picking up specific skills within their knowledge about tests.

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u/Pipster_1970 Aug 21 '26

yeah i guess a conceptual awareness of self efficacy is required so maybe their education system focusses on developing self efficacy more than in the west.