What Is Metacognition? Thinking About Your Own Thinking
Metacognition — thinking about your own thinking — is one of the most teachable and consequential cognitive skills.
March 2025
November 2024
The Dunning-Kruger Effect: Why Incompetence Feels Like Expertise
McArthur Wheeler robbed two banks in broad daylight wearing no disguise — he had rubbed lemon juice on his face and believed it made him invisible...
October 2024
The Dunning-Kruger Effect
In 1995, McArthur Wheeler robbed two Pittsburgh banks in broad daylight without a disguise. When police showed him surveillance footage, he was genuinely baffled. He had rubbed lemon juice on his face, believing it would make him invisible to cameras. This story prompted David Dunning and Justin Kruger's 1999 study: people with limited knowledge systematically overestimate their competence — because the skills needed to recognize incompetence are the same skills needed to perform competently.
The Feynman Technique: How to Learn Anything by Teaching It Simply
The Feynman Technique is a 4-step learning method that uses simple explanation to expose gaps in understanding.
November 2023
Decision Journaling: How to Systematically Improve Your Judgment Over Time
Decision journaling is the practice of recording your reasoning at the time of a decision and reviewing outcomes later.
September 2023
The Dunning-Kruger Effect Explained
The Dunning-Kruger effect describes how incompetence impairs the ability to recognise incompetence.
December 2022
What Is the Dunning-Kruger Effect: What the Research Actually Shows
The Dunning-Kruger effect explained: the original 1999 research, the replication debates, what it actually claims vs the meme version, and what it...