Justin S. Kruger is an American social psychologist and professor at
New York University Stern School of Business.
Education
Kruger received his
BS in
Psychology
Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries betwee ...
from
Santa Clara University
Santa Clara University is a private Jesuit university in Santa Clara, California. Established in 1851, Santa Clara University is the oldest operating institution of higher learning in California. The university's campus surrounds the historic M ...
in 1993 (spending his junior year at
Durham University
, mottoeng = Her foundations are upon the holy hills ( Psalm 87:1)
, established = (university status)
, type = Public
, academic_staff = 1,830 (2020)
, administrative_staff = 2,640 (2018/19)
, chancellor = Sir Thomas Allen
, vice_cha ...
, England), and received his
PhD in Social Psychology from
Cornell University
Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...
in 1999.
Research
Kruger is known for co-authoring a 1999 study with
David Dunning. This study showed that people who performed in the lowest at certain tasks, such as judging humor, grammar, and logic, significantly overestimated how good they were at these tasks. This study has since given rise to what is known as the
Dunning–Kruger effect, a form of cognitive bias where persons with low ability in a particular task experience a sense of
illusory superiority.
The study also found that people who performed slightly above average at identifying how funny a given joke was tended to be the most accurate at assessing how good they were at the assigned tasks, and that those who performed the best tended to think they performed only slightly above average.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kruger, Justin
Living people
American social psychologists
American people of German descent
Cornell University alumni
Year of birth missing (living people)
Santa Clara University alumni
New York University Stern School of Business faculty
20th-century American psychologists
21st-century American psychologists
Alumni of Durham University