Dunning-Kruger effect – from incompetent to competent

One of the cognitive biases that keep the incompetent people away from realizing that they are incompetent. No matter if they constantly mess-up things at work, have the same type of dispute at home, are failing various projects, the incompetent still don’t look at them as they’re incompetent.

There isn’t a fine line that separates the “incompetent” from “competent”, but the incompetent is that individual that is less competent than its peers.

The study that Dunning and Kruger worked on, starts with 4 predictions about the links between competence, metacognitive ability and the inflated self-assessment:

1. Incompetent individuals, compared with their more competent peers, will dramatically overestimate their ability and performance relative to the objective criteria.
2. Incompetent individuals will suffer from deficient metacognitive skills, less able to recognize competence when they see it
3. Incompetent individuals will be unable to use information about choices and performance of others to form more accurate impressions of their own ability
4. Incompetent individuals can be more competent by providing them the metacognitive skills necessary to realize that they have performed poorly.

All the above predictions have been exemplified using a series of case studies where the participants have been asked to assess their ability and test performance.

Interesting enough the results of the studies softly conclude that: the way to make incompetent individuals realize their own incompetence is to make them competent.

“Cognitive psychology tells us that the unaided human mind is vulnerable to many fallacies and illusions because of its reliance on its memory for vivid anecdotes rather than systematic statistics. “ – Steven Pinker

Tune in your voice

As more than 90% of communication is to be found in the non-verbal cues that other person is offering: visual, tactile, vocal and use of time and space, we could easily assume that, if we have a communication flow then it is not generated by what words we have used.

“What did I say?” is one the question that takes some thoughtful space in our minds each time we should have expressed something differently. It could be the case that we really said something inappropriate, in a difficult context, to the wrong person, but with a high degree the answer will hardly find its roots in the area of the used words.

If you find yourself in the zone where you are looking to improve some of communication skills, it becomes useful to check some of practical exercises of non-verbal communication: personal space, eye contact, position, facial expression, gesture, touch, locomotion.

Each time we speak, the other people “read” the timing, the pace, the loudness, the inflections, the tone and the sounds. In next lines will go over couple practical exercises on the voice, as most of the time is not what you said, but how you say it. The voice can be exercised, is not something that we have been born and stuck with.

Breathing properly – the amount of air that we are inhaling or exhaling could make a big difference from a pleasant voice to a nasal, from gravelly to smooth.

1. The Stimulating Breath (1 min – watch how to video from DR A. Weil- see video) exercise is adapted from a yogic breathing technique, is to raise the energy of the nervous system and to increase alertness, this technique will give you boost up and vitality in the voice and body. It can be used when you are sleepy or not in the mood, when your natural tendency is to be quite and an energy boost-up will help you.
2. The 4-7-8 Breath (2 min video on how to – see video) is to slow the heartbeat and lower blood pressure, it acts like a natural tranquilizer. It can be used when you natural tendency is to overreact or react too quickly.

Stir your voice volume – the voice volume of the persons can go from a very soft, quite level to a very loud level, those levels are tight to the mind and body state, calm and cool the volume is low, exited or mad volume tends to rise.

1. Call a buddy exercise – you go ahead and use this when you know there is room for improvement on the volume, either the others don’t hear you, either they are hearing you too well and from far distance. This exercise requires a close friend that it’s spending time around you and will constantly tell you each time your voice is low or your voice is high.
2. Laugh Out-loud: Stand in front of your mirror breathing easily. On your out breath begin a series of Ha-ha-ha-ha’s until all your breath is used. Take an in breath and start again. Vary your laughter. Make it louder, make it quiet and then build it up again. Repeat until you are laughing loudly and easily without any strain.

“In order to understand what another person is saying, you must assume that it is true and try to find out what it could be true of.” – George Miller, 1968

Accidental or not, the power of will

What a sports night, O’Sullivan loses in front of Trump and Halep wins in front of Jankovic. Accidental or not and first times driven by the power of will, will be the touch points on this article.

Now it’s been at least 20 years since I’m watching snooker, I didn’t loose any World Championship since 1998 and I always been fascinated by this game. All of these to see the unbelievable, Ronnie kicks the cue ball way too low, so it jumps over the ball in front. It could be that he was tired, it could be that he just made a mistake or it could be that he can just go wrong. I have seen him going wrong before, but even when he goes wrong he still looses in a great way.

Accidental or not, hard to define, you have the facts and you have what happened, recorded on you tube (full game – Full game video – see 1:18:39 for the super-shot).

The player also called “The Rocket” that has 787 breaks over 100, 5 won World Championships, 147 – the highest possible break for 13 times(also the world record for the fastest) and the person that made Hendry to come back in snooker after retire, has never made such a basic mistake.

How is that possible and what has been changed, so Ronnie would do that? Is it accidental?

At the opposite side we have the tennis, where we had some really good players like Tiriac and Nastase and we are waiting for a new one to rise. Simona Halep has at least 2-3 years trying to prove herself that she can be 1^st in WTA, where the American sisters are getting old, Sharapova is not sure that tennis is her carrier and few other that are following.

Indian wells, half way in the game Simona was looking for the perfect corner shot and was keep losing points, she was in the straps trying to achieve the best performance – win the final, win the biggest title of her carrier.

The perfect shot turned quickly in a winning shot, just by constantly kicking the ball in the field, nothing showy, just playing tennis. As she stands “I don’t know how I won today, because I didn’t play my best. I didn’t play like good tennis, but I just wanted to fight to the end.”

What was the fight she did go for and what made her win for the first time the Indian Wells?

Interesting enough, sports it’s a field where the state of a continuous improvement and continuous exercising supersedes all the others, but yet looks that the power of will and the achievement of first, takes a special place and ships the candidate over the mountains.

“It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell.” – Buddha

Overdose ourselves with frequency adverbs

False absolutism? Overemphasis? Over-generalization?

How often do you hear words like: never, always, constantly, all the time, continuously, uninterruptedly, invariable?

As theory says the frequency adverbs have a percentage that describes how often an action takes place:

• 100% always, constantly, continuously, habitually (Level I)
• 90% usually, normally, mostly, regularly (Level II)
• 75% frequently, generally, repeatedly (Level II)
• 60% often (Level III)
• 50% sometimes (Level III)
• 40% occasionally, sporadically (Level II)
• 20% rarely, seldom, infrequently (Level II)
• 0% never (Level I)

As soon as the statistics/numbers are kicking in vocabulary, it seems that instead of gaining plus value for that word or sentence, we lose it between the other numbers/details.

Should we use ‘always’ or ‘never’? Should we value them like all the pitching selling recipes that are all over the internet: Always available, Always Innovating, Always win,…, will that bring to us the desired results or it will blister our vocabulary?

Let’s take the extremes out and move our attention on words like ‘usually, rarely, mostly, rarely and seldom’, the 2nd Level ones. Used at a professional level could easily nudge us in the lack of confidence zone, unpredictability, unreliability and irregularity, which will set us from the start to the middle lands of everybody.

Alright, we keep ourselves safe from the first and second level of frequency adverbs, and we let it convey to the ‘often’ and ‘sometimes’, that balanced found a place in the right hand of Greek lady, Themis, and that could offer us another door; obvious that we have all those edge cases where a certain context does not look for the next opportunity, but what I’m after for, is a the pattern that can increase our chances of using the right adverb in the right context.

Close enough to a world where true can be false and vice versa – what is the ‘word/sentence/form’ that would increase our chances to provide the right level of confidence, of professionalism, of measurement, of all.

Real Expression’s of Words Never Heard By The Prolific Penman

References:

• The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature – Steven Pinker
• The Snark Handbook: Insult Edition: Comebacks, Taunts, and Effronteries – Lawrence Dorfman
• 10 Words people who lack confidence always use
• More use almost always a means a smaller frequency effect: Aging, bilingualism, and the weaker links hypothesis
• Real Expression’s of Words Never Heard – The Prolific Penman

Why is that we are attracted to the secrets?

My believe is that we crave for them; a short analysis tells us that:

• revealing a secret on any of the media channels it’s an audience jackpot hitting;
• the book written by Rhonda Byrne was best-selling 2006 – ‘The Secret’
• the secret magic of the movies is revealing new ways of thinking
• the silent whisper around the corner is finding on new partners

Not only, but the above, could be considered as an indicator of proven interest that is built around secrets.

Secret Key – Unlock it

But what is a secret and why do we call it secret?

By Merriam definition is ‘keeping information hidden from others’ and it is firstly referenced around 14^th century; going deeper a bit I found some documents that reveal information from 1250 AD where Matthew Paris was drawing shows in conference with operative Masons, as later Catholic authorities and Freemasons will draw the lines of infamous Illuminati, the “Men in Black,” the silent masters in the background who plot the futures.

Since then, the definition and the meaning of ‘secret’ has built up its reputation to the extent that secret agencies – wiki list by country seem to dictate who is doing what and why it should run in a certain way.

Bringing my thoughts to the day–to-day activities, I hardly find a real reason why we keep a certain type of information hidden from others. Is it that we don’t want to hurt them, is it that we don’t find it appropriate for them, what is that we want to keep a secret?

“Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.” ― Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanack

Various studies reveal that is not even healthy to keep secrets, as James Pennebraker, a psychologist from the University of Texas, found 1970 that “people hiding traumatic secrets showed more incidents of hypertension, influenza, even cancer,”

David Eagleman, a neuroscientist, also at the University of Texas, has found that secrets cause the brain to kind of fight with itself. One part of the brain wants to tell the secret and the other wants to keep it hidden.

 

I will stop now and I will raise you a challenge – What is your secret and what stops you from revealing it?

 

 

 References:

“The Physical Burdens of Secrecy” (Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, Nov. 2012)

“Keeping Emotional Memories Secret” (Journal of Health Psychology, Jan. 1998)

http://health.howstuffworks.com/mental-health/

 

How do we know we have made the best decision?

I would say that: We don’t.

All we know is that we have made a decision, which will bring us in one of the many functional areas of the brain; brain that takes the necessary notes and acts accordingly next time when we have to make another decision. ‘Parts of the Brain and Their Functions’ will leave it on the side for another article.

So what is the big deal with the ‘decision making’ and what is that ‘we do or we don’t make the best decision(s)’. From my perspective it’s all an exercise that we decide to practice it or not, obvious we can do it on different time frequencies.

Can we just say that we never make decisions? We all make them conscious or not: to move, to blink, to sleep … those unconscious ones can go on to an infinite number, it all depends on how often we do it and if we want to challenge our brain or not.

What I’m more interest in is ‘What is happening with the decisions that we make using our conscious zone of the brain? How do we know we made the best one? ‘

To exercise the consciousness part of our decision mechanism will require at least:

• a complete view of the current context – identifying the 5W’s
• a full impact assessment of the previous similar decisions we have made – if there is one

Having parts of these at hand we will make a decision, which will for sure increase our odds of getting closer to a better decision next time.

NOW, wouldn’t be nice to find out what is in our consciousness zone; for sure we will find different flavors of consciousness, some of them are well founded and almost ready to go on unconsciousness state, some of them in progress of becoming conscious and some of them are spinning around and are ready to be welcomed in.

What was the last important decision that you made?

Books:

• The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science – Norman Doidge
• Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School – John Medina
• Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain – David Eagleman
• Thinking, Fast and Slow – Daniel Kahneman

Cook it or buy it

I did ask myself the other day if I should go and have a meal out or I should go ahead and cook it myself.

Obvious there are pros/cons on both sides and of course there are many types of variations.

I will take a simple example burger with French fries as meal and I will do a cost/time analysis having in mind the assumption that both will contain the same type of ingredients.

For the meal out we have:
– 40 to 45 minutes best case scenario until we could say – ‘Ohhh, that was the meal that I was looking for’
– We will spent around 25-30 Ron (equivalent of 10$)
– We will use the meal waiting time as efficient as we considered

Buy it

For the preparing meal we have:
– procuring the ingredients, average 10 min, this could be less, it depends how efficient we are
– We will spent around 10-15 Ron (equivalent of 5$)
– Preparing the meal it will take 20-30 min
– We will not have any waiting time, as we are busy with preparing and procuring the meal

Cook it

As simple as it has been presented, seems that we could just ask ourselves – ‘is it worth going out or we should just cook it ourselves?’

Worst travel experience as comment to Richard Branson

NY Fitness Coach – not sure why I selected this photo 🙂

I agree, challenge your mind combined with some discomfort can raise the innovation spirit in you.

Most of my flying experiences did not have the wow in it, maybe the first one in US with the British Airways where not necessary the quality of the service, but the enthusiasm of going to US, made it pleasant even if it took around 40 hours, split in 2 flight and 2 busses.

So what is that would bring some ‘WOW’ to our flight experience. To be honest nowadays the connection to the network it’s almost a mandatory thing, wherever you are: on the plane, on the bus, on the…. – of course if you want that connection. I really don’t know why would not be possible, just thinking out loud without any research backing me up. Anything else that I missed? We could almost get the food that we want if we have that network availableJ.

I just don’t like it when I hear over the speaker – ‘Turn off all the electronic devices’ – WHY? Aren’t you a nowadays flight company to afford having the technology that doesn’t make me do that? It’s hard for me to imagine that we cannot be connected all the time, actually I did experience the possibility of having wireless on the plane on my last trip to US.

The technology is out there. I might be hush when I say that the flight companies don’t want to make most of the people happy, could they believe that the technology is there to be used at their disposal or it’s just the blindness of this huge demand and need for technology.

Now, all of these could be the cause of most of the companies that failed. The impossibility to adapt to the new market demands, the idea that they run the world and no one can challenge them. Sometimes the best challenger comes from whiten you inner space.

This is just a comment to Richard Branson’s articles from:

Linkedin Article – My worst travel experience

Virgin Travel Article – My worst travel experience

Feel good – Charity Campaigns

This year I got the fever of what positive energy gives you the participation to a charity campaign. Of course it had all the jams in it, you know, Romanian style:

• We play as a team – so if we all are dumb, we all are dumb;
• How we ensure that the money are going in the right place – don’t worry there will always be a person to check that :);
• Don’t do that because we don’t do it this way – Why not? it doesn’t bring more money to the charity, Isn’t that the scope? Does it offend anyone? What in hell is the issue then?;
• And of course the other smaller ones: I don’t wear that T-shirt, we need to make sure that every little thing it’s highly how everyone needs to be…

Is there anything wrong with that?

Depends how you want to look at it; I would say – Not at all. It was a blast, it made me feel good, it gave me the possibility of practicing a sport, it offered me the chance to challenge my cheesecake recipe, … I would not stop for at least 5 more lines, but to summarize – it made my life better.

I know that it may sound sappy and cheesy, but you should give it a try and let me know if you feel different.

The auctioned cheesecake – it was a redesign/facelift using the classical ingredients of an American Cheesecake

 

One of the best shoots – I have my back covered 🙂

JSF – Upload Image in Primefaces CKEditor

                 JSF 2.0 is a framework interesting enough to get your attention; combined with a component library like Primefaces it really makes it worth. In addition to the 100+ rich set of JSF components from Primefaces you could also add the PrimeFaces Extensions. Having all these on hand, I noticed that the CKEditor that is integrated in Primefaces Extension doesn’t have built-in support for uploading/rendering images.

Let’s get rollin’ on uploading/rendering an image in CKEditor using:

• Primefaces Extension for CKEditor component
• HttpServlet for CKEditorUploadServlet and for CKEditorGetImageServlet
• JS for CKEditor configuration
• Spring @Service for saving or getting images from db

1. Declare primefaces dependencies in your pom.xml

<dependency>
   <groupId>org.primefaces</groupId>
   <artifactId>primefaces</artifactId>
   <version>3.4</version>
  </dependency>

  <dependency>
   <groupId>org.primefaces.extensions</groupId>
   <artifactId>resources-ckeditor</artifactId>
   <version>0.6.2</version>
  </dependency>

2. Add the editor.xhtml to your project

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
 xmlns:ui="http://java.sun.com/jsf/facelets"
 xmlns:h="http://java.sun.com/jsf/html"
 xmlns:p="http://primefaces.org/ui"
 xmlns:pe="http://primefaces.org/ui/extensions">

<ui:composition>
 <pe:ckEditor id="#{id}" required="true"  width="0"
  height="#{height}" requiredMessage="#{requiredMessage}"
  value="#{value}" customConfig="#{request.contextPath}/resources/js/ckeditor.js"
  toolbar="[['Bold', 'Italic', 'Underline','-', 'Image','-', 'Link']]">
  <p:ajax event="blur" update="editorMessageId" />
 </pe:ckEditor>

 <p:message for="#{id}" id="editorMessageId" />
 <h:outputLabel value="#{request.contextPath}"/>
</ui:composition>
</html>

3.Include the editor.xhtml to any page – where it’s needed

<ui:include src="/pages/editor.xhtml">
 <ui:param name="requiredMessage" value="#{msg['documentation.required']}" />
 <ui:param name="value" value="#{bean.documentation}" />
 <ui:param name="id" value="documentationId" />
 <ui:param name="height" value="260" />
</ui:include>

4. Configure the filebrowserImageUploadUrl from CKEditor, so it knows what servlet to use when the upload button is clicked. I saved the file in /resources/js/ as ckeditor.js.

CKEDITOR.editorConfig = function(config) {
 var contextPath = $('.contextPath').html();
 config.filebrowserImageUploadUrl = contextPath+'/ckeditor/uploadimage';
};

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6