The Britney Spears Phenomenon: Why the Inept Often Succeed

I've often wondered why it is that people of modest intelligence and talent often have great success in life, while many extremely talented people possessed of very high IQ frequently do not. You see it all the time. Britney Spears, for instance. While she's a beautiful girl, recent events seem to suggest she's not all that bright. And her singing, though adequate for its purpose, doesn't rise to the level of, say, Christina Aguilera. So how do you explain her pop career, which until she seemingly lost her mind, placed her at the top of the charts?

I think I have the answer. It's a little known phenomenon called the Dunning-Kruger Effect. And the crux of it is that people with little or no knowledge or talent believe themselves to be much smarter and more talented than they actually are. David Dunning and Justin Kruger of Cornell University did a series of experiments with undergraduates at Cornell. And the results of the study demonstrated that:

• Incompetent people tend to overestimate their skill level.

• Incompetent people are incapable of recognizing real skill in others.

• Incompetent people fail to realize how incompetent they are.

• If these same incompetent people can be trained to raise their level of skill, they then are able to realize and acknowledge their previous inadequacy.

The results of this study were published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and the authors noted that: "Across four studies, the authors found that participants scoring in the bottom quartile on tests of humor, grammar, and logic grossly overestimated their test performance and ability."

What's really amazing is that people with true intelligence, knowledge, or ability tend to underestimate themselves. And the obvious result of that is they are less likely to pursue their goals, thereby limiting the possibility that they will meet with success. Meanwhile, the Britneys of the world keep getting richer. If you'd like to read more about the Dunning-Kruger Effect, the paper can be found here.