Believing that you are good at something doesn’t automatically make you good at it. In fact, people who know the least about a topic are often the most likely to overestimate how much they actually know. It’s called the Dunning-Kruger effect. This was noticed by a college professor (named Dunning!), who had students who failed tests but thought they aced them. He then teamed up with a graduate student named Kruger, and they devised a study. The results were published in 1999, and the Dunning-Kruger effect was identified.
The effect is a cognitive bias, and occurs when a person isn’t aware of what they lack in terms of knowledge or skill. Without this deficit bothering them, they feel better about their abilities than they should. As Dunning said “We don’t know when we’re stepping into out little pool of stupidity”
This effect shows up not only in school, but work, home, and even church! I wondered how it manifests at church, particularly the LDS Church. I think it is more prevalent for us Mormons because we have a lay clergy. Mormons look at this as a feature, not a bug. Bishops who are not trained ministers are somehow looked at as superior to the ordained ministers of other faith traditions.
So you have a Mormon Bishop who has been set apart as the presiding High Priest and President of the Aaronic Priesthood for his ward. He has been given keys and priesthood power to preform this calling. He feels confident that the Lord has chosen him to lead the ward.
His first Sunday he must counsel with a ward member who is suffering clinical depression. Then a women who’s husband is abusive. Next week there is a newlywed couple who are having relationship issues. This Bishop has had no formal training in therapy, psychology, or family relationships. After a year or so into his calling, if you asked him how he rates himself a marriage counselor, I would bet the Dunning-Kruger effect would manifest itself with flying colors.
Now there are other factors influencing this bishop’s overconfidence. He believes he has the sprit of discernment (he doesn’t), that God is directing him on what to say (He isn’t), and that he has a successful marriage (probably doesn’t), so how hard can it be?
I saw this in other callings growing up in the Church, from inept scout masters and ill-informed seminary teachers. They were called of God, so they had the skills to do the job! Having never worked for the Church, I wonder if this effect is a prevalent in the Church Office Building as it is in other workplaces, or maybe more so? What about at the General Authority level where they are given assignments over committees or departments which they have no expertise, like maybe history or Public Relations. I understand for sometime now the leader of the history department is NOT a historian. The current Historian is a lawyer (surprised?)
What has been your experience in dealing with the Dunning-Kruger effect, either with yourself, or with those around you?
Have you seen this effect with your Church leaders with certain skills (or lack there of)
Wheat & Tares 
With the ascension of Clark Gilbert to the Q12, this post feels pretty on the nose. While I know plenty of humble bishops and even SP that recognize their limitations, in general I think the LDS church is a master class in the harm that baking in the DK effect can do.
I see the problem beginning with Joseph Smith, who by the end seemed to think every chance thought that came to his imagination was God revealing something profound to him and that he was better at understanding the Bible and the ways of God than anyone else. When you have that as a foundation, it licenses the sort of thing that you see over and over again in the LDS church, where business men, lawyers, and dentists believe that a call makes them profound theologians and wise spiritual leaders.
I don’t know that even four years of divinity school prepares one fully to be a marriage or grief counselor, but at least you have some training and more than anything, you don’t have any expectation that just because you are ordained that means you are competent. There is a strong expectation that you continue to learn and seek training and advice. The good LDS bishops do this too, but unfortunately they often turn to other bishops or SP that are grade A DKs, because that’s all there is.
I think that organizations without robust feedback mechanisms are most prone to the damaging outcomes of the DK effect. (Case in point the Trump regime, the DK effect in the extreme.) Unfortunately, the Great Basin branch of the Mormon movement’s response to Joseph Smith’s assassination was to make any criticism of church leaders taboo, so LDS leaders that make bad decisions never are confronted with the costs of their foolish choices. While ward members might be willing to provide robust feedback to a bishop, the farther up one goes in the LDS hierarchy, the less and less that happens. The system is explicitly designed that way. So you end up with a Q12 that with one or two exceptions, has little understanding of Christian theology or the spiritual needs of their people, but do have a smug assurance that they know God best. ( So I guess Brad Wilcox will be the next Q12 pick.)
With respect to senior GAs, like those in Q15, compound DK effect with being in senior leadership positions for 40-50 years in which essentially no on has ever given them any pushback or questioned their decisions or “inspiration.” In fact their subordinates fawn all over them and take their every word, even if only hinted at, as a command from God. This is DK effect on steroids (or more aptly cocaine or meth?). What does that bubble of adoration and infallibility do to a person’s psyche? It’s a recipe for disaster for the organizations and people they lead – especially by the time that person is in their 80s or 90s.
I think it’s very common for Church members to believe they are experts in Mormon scripture, history, and theology after growing up in the Church, attending weekly Sunday classes, attending seminary every school day, taking a religion class every semester at BYU, serving a mission, etc. After going through all of this, they can produce the Church-approved answer to any question posed in any Church manual or lesson. What they don’t realize:
1. They’ve only ever been exposed to Church-approved, “faith-promoting” materials.
2. Their understanding of Church history is whitewashed — virtually anything that doesn’t cleanly align with the Church’s narrative is never taught. For example, there is zero archaeological evidence for the historicity of anything in the BoM, and we can compare real translations of Egyptian against Joseph Smith’s translations of the BoA and clearly see that Joseph was wrong.
3. Church lessons rarely delve deeply into the scriptures. The passages cited in lessons are mostly used to drive home whatever points Church leaders think are important at the time.
It’s very common for young adults who have gone through the full “Church education process” to naturally assume they really are experts in Mormon scripture, history, and theology when, in reality, they know very little. All those years of indoctrination make them think they are experts when they are really unwitting victims of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
The very ways the church teaches to gain “sure knowledge” feed right smack into psychological ways to fool yourself. Fake a testimony until you are positive you have received a witness from God. Bear your testimony to develop one. Pray until you know. They are all ways of convincing yourself with zero evidence that what you want to be true is absolutely factual, when you have zero facts. If I had my old psychology books, I could find you studies that back up what I am saying, but trust me—I prayed about it.
Dear friends,
This might be a good time for a little self-reflection. Just about everyone who comments here–including myself–has a tendency to become an “expert” on the subject at hand.
I taught Gospel Doctrine for a few years, maybe 20 years ago. Because my professional job was also teaching, I taught by asking questions. Not only the ones in the lesson materials, but others as well, including questioning some of the answers people gave to the questions. Some in the ward loved it. But when we got a new Bishop, I was released. For him, everything was black and white. I was hurt, but over time, I’ve come to realize that while the church was started with a question, you can’t really question anything now without repercussions. The saddest thing is how people who actually do spend the energy to find out things by questioning are labeled and dismissed as lazy.
I issue my strongest possible condemnation to the plague of ignorance that is sweeping the land. The church landscape is no different.
Too many young bishops have adopted the Kaiser Wilhelm II method of bishoping. They feel that they were chosen to be bishop because they have extraordinary abilities. Then, they feel that the mantle of bishop means that they can do no wrong.
The irrefutable truth is that their training has been limited to playing violent video games and watching Dua Lipa videos on YouTube. This does nothing to prepare them for counseling the mentally ill or helping someone recover from financial distress.
Bishops should be required to engaging in significant training. That goes for finance, mental health, and addiction. This should be enough training to identify what the issue is, and then to refer the congregant to a professional in that area.
The bottom line is that most bishops are prepared for little more than anything that requires more skills than passively watching a hot dog eating contest. I condemn it.
@Jack, that’s fair, and I think the OP is pretty clear that everyone is subject to the DK effect. If, like you said, “everyone who comments here has a tendency to become an ‘expert’ on the subject at hand”, wouldn’t the Q15 be subject to that same tendency? After all, we’re all human.
Humility (about knowledge and knowing) is a rare trait among the LDS.
In the LDS church in particular, we throw people into callings for which they lack much training, and people gradually develop self-confidence in their abilities as they become more comfortable in the role. I think those experiences can absolutely be a good thing that teach us skills and abilities we wouldn’t have had otherwise. The challenge is that there’s a difference between being better at something than you once were and actually being good at something by objective standards. The problem is that the church can be so insular that many aren’t even aware that established best practices exist for things like counseling, much less have any idea how they measure up against those standards.
My husband served as a bishop almost 50 years ago. Training was much more extensive then than it is today, and bishops weren’t expected to also served as young men’s presidents (a terrible mistake, in my opinion.) Back then, all bishops could report abuse to authorities because there was no help line. Of course, bishops have traditionally assumed that they have the spirit of discernment in complex situations when too often, they are relying on their best guy instincts, which are often wrong.
Today, with better therapeutic interventions available, bishops can and should refer mental health and marital issues to professional that are well-training in those fields, and, from my perspective, too often, LDS social services therapists may not be well-trained and lack confidentiality as well.
Such a fascinating post.
Thank you.
I am getting close to wrapping up a tour as a bishop. In my professional life, now retired, as a military and airline pilot, we had to recognize our fallibility, weak areas, etc, so that we could mitigate death, disaster or simply very expensive bent metal. As a flight test pilot in the USAF, several airplanes did their best to try to make me “buy the farm.” My best effort to deal with it was to recognize where I was weak and get better in those areas to provide a stopgap. You got better by consulting with a known professional in a given area of operation so that you knew all of the options available.
I’ve known from the outset of this bishop tour that I am a fairly decent leader, thanks to 28 years of military training. I can organize some relatively complex operations, again, thanks USAF. I have some fairly decent empathy for feeling like an unworthy congregant, thanks to a lifetime of dumb decisions. I’ve got the gift of the gab, thanks Dad, rip! And, lastly I can easily hang with great people that are not mormon who are dear friends, and see their friendships as some of my greatest blessings.
What I am not, is a marriage counselor, I am not a financial counselor, I am not a mental health professional etc. I do not act like I am, and when folks come into the office, tied up in knots because of guilt, or failure of any kind, the best I can do is have empathy for them and their situation, perhaps share my experience in dealing with similar circumstances, and finally, regardless how they feel, let them know that the Savior loves them and wants them to be a happy human. But, I then let them know that they need to see a professional in the areas that they are dealing with. As their bishop, I am there to console them and relay the love of the Savior.
Meeting with youth in the office is never done without the door being left open a few inches, for their safety and mine. When they come to me with the normal “youth” problems, I assure them they are totally normal and that going through their new found sexuality is part of the process and that the goal is to figure out how to control urges that they feel are sometimes out of control. “Give yourself limits” and feel good about yourself when you abide by them.
I am an amateur scriptorium at best. I am not a theologian. The best I have are my experiences and the passages of scripture that I love the most and how they have strengthened me personally.
I agree with Rose, that it is mistake to make the bishop the Young Men’s president. I have fixed that by asking a much younger man to be a “floating YM’s advisor.” I still go to all of the youth activities and enjoy letting my “inner kid run free,” but don’t generally have to deal with the minutiae of running the program.
There appears to be a trend, especially in Utah, (I’m in CA), to call very young bishops. It’s great for the youth aspect, but in my opinion, horrific for adult problems and knowing how to deal with them, particularly with regard to recognizing your own inexperience and need to recommend professional help and intervention.
My only true strength as a bishop is my life experience and recognizing at an older age that there is a lot of things that I don’t know. To answer Bill’s questions regarding DK effect, I’ve seen it numerous times in “church leaders” and in my professional life. In the USAF when we saw someone exhibiting DK, it was said that “He/She is all thrust and no vector!”
Do with all that what you will …. “Flame Away!”
Cheers Friends – Mongo
One of the most blatant instances I’ve noticed is the theme of “authority”. Back in December, as part of the Christmas season, I read the book of Luke straight through—one chapter a day for 24 days. Reading it that way made certain patterns impossible to miss. Among them was the recurring question: “By what authority do you do these things?”
Luke 20 opens with that exact challenge, and it exposes the real conflict between Jesus and the religious leaders. The issue isn’t whether the miracles happened—no one disputes the healings, the teaching, or the crowds gathering around him. What’s being contested is authority, especially when it’s exercised outside the sanctioned power structure.
A similar tension shows up in the film Hidden Figures. NASA desperately needs solutions its established system can’t produce. As the pressure mounts, the agency is forced to reckon with the undeniable authority of correct answers while resisting the source of those answers—a woman, and a Black one at that. The problem isn’t accuracy or competence; it’s who is possessing the authority. Institutions often assume authority belongs to position rather than to those who actually demonstrate it. Acknowledging the real source would mean relinquishing control, redrawing boundaries, and admitting that power had been misassigned. As in Luke, the system hesitates—not because evidence is lacking, but because transformation is harder than failure.
Had Jesus stayed within the approved religious framework, his miracles would have validated that system. The temple and its hierarchy would have gained legitimacy as the official channels of divine power. Instead, Jesus operates without institutional authorization. Crowds gather around him, loyalty shifts, and centralized power begins to thin. Meaning and legitimacy stop funneling upward and instead form around a person.
That is the true threat Jesus poses: authority that cannot be contained, certified, or controlled. The question becomes not whether God is acting, but whether God is permitted to act outside those who claim stewardship over divine access.
Luke’s narrative suggests that divine authority is recognizable without institutional endorsement. It is known by its fruit—healing, liberation, transformation—and by those who experience it firsthand. Such authority doesn’t necessarily abolish institutions, but it does evaluate them. Systems built to serve life can accommodate it; systems built to contain it inevitably resist.
And this tension isn’t ancient history. Jesus performing healings outside the hierarchy is not unlike the hypothetical scenario of a woman within the LDS Church exercising greater spiritual power than the prophet himself. The response wouldn’t focus on the good being done but on the same uneasy question: By what authority do you do these things?
Luke leaves that question hanging, inviting the reader to decide whether authority ultimately belongs to office—or to the power that makes life whole
17RRider: You said “But, I then let them know that they need to see a professional in the areas that they are dealing with.” And THAT is the key difference between someone with Dunning-Kreuger and someone who is humble. I’ve definitely seen both types of bishops in my lifetime. Part of that is because Stake Presidents are not always good at hiring, and their leaders are not always good at hiring. Sometimes they are deliberately promoting someone who will do something other than be a good leader. It might be political, like Clark Gilbert’s disastrous appointment (aka find the youngest bigoted henchman possible to ensure Oaks’ legacy?), or it might be because the SP just wants to be surrounded by people he likes. Additionally, we are automatically excluding the majority of church members–women–from consideration at all. We are also eliminating anyone divorced, gay, single, or simply not well networked with whatever nepotistic boys club may exist in that stake. We exclude men whose children have left the church. We exclude those whose jobs prevent the heavy load, and we exclude anyone with facial hair. Not one of those exclusions increases the talent pool. We are excluding people based on things that literally have nothing to do with leadership, and elevating those who are willing to conform for the sake of conformity.
This weekend I saw the movie Send Help. Rachel McAdams plays an overlooked but brilliant employee who works at a company where the CEO’s son has just taken over and put his frat buddy (who literally steals her work and takes credit) into the executive job she was promised. At some point he tells her why he did that–that she doesn’t have the interpersonal skills and network to succeed in the role, and he’s totally right. She’s a smart person, and does brilliant work, but she’s a weirdo. He’s honestly no better, and probably much worse because he really is running a boys club. He’s calling the other executives “boys,” that’s how blatant it is. He’s rich because his now dead father left him this company, and obviously he’s got the Ivy League education, but he’s a sexist, lazy jerk skating by on his looks and connections. The fact that the two of them are in a plane crash (all of this is in the trailer, BTW) is probably the best thing that will happen to that company.
The church’s culture of being proud that we have a “lay clergy” is something I grew up thinking was such an important selling point, but as I gained real life experience, I realized that it’s like saying we are proud that a university is being run by someone without a college degree (or in the case of Clark Gilbert, someone running CES without an education degree). I had a discussion with someone years ago who said maybe we should give equal time to teaching creationism and evolution in high school (I’m sure this person would now see their stance at utterly ridiculous). My reply was “Who would teach such a class? Certainly not a science teacher.” But that’s what you get when we try to put everyone’s ideas on par without any backing. The entire Trump administration is an exercise in Dunning-Kreuger, but Mormons should be totally used to that because that’s what we’ve grown up in.
An LDS work colleague of mine who was a former bishop believed so much in his power of discernment that he was positive he could tell when someone was lying to him in a temple recommend interview. I said that there are a million reasons someone might appear to be withholding or obfuscating and that it didn’t mean he was right. He said he believed in his own gut and would withhold a recommend based on his own hunches. I said that was not right, and that he might literally be withholding a recommend because someone was suppressing a fart. I didn’t convince him, and he didn’t convince me. I didn’t find him to be a particularly good judge of character in our work life. He was about average. Our boss found him arrogant.
17RRider, thanks for your comments! I have worked with many retired military men, and find they have great organizational skills, though the Navy nukes can be very anal as they were trained to be. I had a friend who was bishop in SoCal, and they had a SP who was a retired Navy Nuclear officer. He was so obnoxious as a Bishop, that when my friend was called to be his counselor when he was called to be SP, my friend turned it down and said he couldn’t work with him!