Jonathan_Graehl comments on Restraint Bias - Less Wrong
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Comments (12)
I agree that it's not exactly tautological.
Another surface pattern: "those with low 'self-control' tend to overestimate their 'self-control' the most" is an instance of the Dunning-Kruger effect, where you substitute any skill for 'self-control'. I don't think that it's deeply meaningful to do so, however; I think self-control is a more basic phenomenon than the kind of performance competencies studied by DK.
I see Dunning-Kruger mentioned all the time, but hasn't it been discredited?
The Dunning-Kruger effect has been disputed, mostly by people saying that the pattern of results is just due to regression to the mean rather than a lack of metacognitive skill, but the debate is ongoing. Dunning, Kruger, and others have a 2008 paper (pdf) which includes a summary of the criticisms and a defense of their original interpretation.
According to my cursory research over the past five minutes, not obviously - do you have a specific idea of which results have been disconfirmed? (The "Lake Wobegon effect" - that everyone considers themselves above average - has been widely confirmed, I believe.)
I don't remember it quite myself, so I had to google and came up with this: http://neuroskeptic.blogspot.com/2008/11/kruger-dunning-revisited.html
There is a link to a study there.
Looking at the abstract:
...it appears that these authors are disputing the mechanism proposed by Dunning and Kruger, proposing a simpler one. The data remain the same, but the theory changes.
Assuming results such as these are upheld, we may certainly say that the Dunning-Kruger effect is refuted, but people far below average will still consider themselves above average, on average.