Reevaluating the Dunning-Kruger effect: A response to and replication of Gignac and Zajenkowski
Dunkel, Nedelec and van der Linden respond to Gignac and Zajenkowski's argument that the Dunning-Kruger effect is mostly a statistical artefact. They point out that the earlier sample was more than half undergraduates, which may have narrowed the range of intelligence, and repeat the analyses on 13,977 adults from a national American study. The quartile method again shows the pattern, and the alternative tests show a statistically significant effect that is very small, with the quadratic term adding about 1 per cent to the variation explained. They conclude that it is premature to call the effect mostly an artefact and that the conditions affecting its strength deserve study. They list limits: a verbal ability measure with a restricted range and a two-item self-assessment of low reliability.
Dunkel, Nedelec and van der Linden respond to Gignac and Zajenkowski's argument that the Dunning-Kruger effect is mostly a statistical artefact. They point out that the earlier sample was more than half undergraduates, which may have narrowed the range of intelligence, and repeat the analyses on 13,977 adults from a national American study. The quartile method again shows the pattern, and the alternative tests show a statistically significant effect that is very small, with the quadratic term adding about 1 per cent to the variation explained. They conclude that it is premature to call the effect mostly an artefact and that the conditions affecting its strength deserve study. They list limits: a verbal ability measure with a restricted range and a two-item self-assessment of low reliability.
Written from the full text, openly hosted copy (Erasmus University repository), read 2026-10-31; sample size and effect size from the results section.
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Dunkel, C. S., Nedelec, J., & van der Linden, D. (2023). Reevaluating the Dunning-Kruger effect: A response to and replication of Gignac and Zajenkowski (2020). Intelligence, 96, 101717. doi:10.1016/j.intell.2022.101717