Beginner’s Bubble

A 2018 study found that while beginners tend to have a distorted sense of their own capabilities, it’s generally a humble assessment (assuming they know less than they do) until they’ve accumulated a small bit of experience and knowledge, at which point their assumptions flip (somewhat dramatically) in the other direction.

This conflicts somewhat with the Dunning-Kruger-based heuristic that suggests beginners operate from a place of absolute ignorance that gives them a self-flattering, flawed perception of personal knowledge and capability. They don’t know how much they don’t know, basically, and their metrics for judging such things are consequently out of whack, leading to an assumption that they know a lot more than they do or are skilled at something at which they’re truly unskilled.