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We too often think we are better at something than we are

    Are you familiar with the Dunning Kruger effect? It holds that the more incompetent people are, the less they are aware of their incompetence. The effect is named after David Dunning of the University of Michigan and Justin Kruger of New York University.

    Dunning and Kruger gave their test subjects a series of cognitive tasks and asked them to estimate how well they did. At best, 25 percent of the participants viewed their performance more or less realistically; only some people underestimated themselves. The quarter of subjects who scored worst on the tests really missed the mark, wildly exaggerating their cognitive abilities. Is it possible that boasting and failing are two sides of the same coin? As the researchers emphasize, their work highlights a general feature of self-perception: each of us tends to overlook our cognitive deficiencies.

    So why is the chasm between would-be and actual performance so gaping? Don’t we all have an interest in assessing ourselves realistically? It surely would spare us a great deal of wasted effort and perhaps a few embarrassments. The answer, it seems, is that a moderate inflation of self-esteem has certain benefits. According to a review by psychologists Shelley Taylor and Jonathon Brown, rose-colored glasses1 tend to increase our sense of well-being and our performance. On the other hand, people afflicted by depression are inclined to be brutally realistic in their selfassessments. An embellished self-image seems to help us weather the ups and downs of daily life.

(Steve Ayan. www.scientificamerican.com, 15.05.2018. Adaptado.)

¹rose-colored glasses: expressão usada como referência a uma visão positiva ou idealista.

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We too often think we are better at something than we are

    Are you familiar with the Dunning Kruger effect? It holds that the more incompetent people are, the less they are aware of their incompetence. The effect is named after David Dunning of the University of Michigan and Justin Kruger of New York University.

    Dunning and Kruger gave their test subjects a series of cognitive tasks and asked them to estimate how well they did. At best, 25 percent of the participants viewed their performance more or less realistically; only some people underestimated themselves. The quarter of subjects who scored worst on the tests really missed the mark, wildly exaggerating their cognitive abilities. Is it possible that boasting and failing are two sides of the same coin? As the researchers emphasize, their work highlights a general feature of self-perception: each of us tends to overlook our cognitive deficiencies.

    So why is the chasm between would-be and actual performance so gaping? Don’t we all have an interest in assessing ourselves realistically? It surely would spare us a great deal of wasted effort and perhaps a few embarrassments. The answer, it seems, is that a moderate inflation of self-esteem has certain benefits. According to a review by psychologists Shelley Taylor and Jonathon Brown, rose-colored glasses1 tend to increase our sense of well-being and our performance. On the other hand, people afflicted by depression are inclined to be brutally realistic in their selfassessments. An embellished self-image seems to help us weather the ups and downs of daily life.

(Steve Ayan. www.scientificamerican.com, 15.05.2018. Adaptado.)

¹rose-colored glasses: expressão usada como referência a uma visão positiva ou idealista.

Leia o texto para responder às questão.

We too often think we are better at something than we are

    Are you familiar with the Dunning Kruger effect? It holds that the more incompetent people are, the less they are aware of their incompetence. The effect is named after David Dunning of the University of Michigan and Justin Kruger of New York University.

    Dunning and Kruger gave their test subjects a series of cognitive tasks and asked them to estimate how well they did. At best, 25 percent of the participants viewed their performance more or less realistically; only some people underestimated themselves. The quarter of subjects who scored worst on the tests really missed the mark, wildly exaggerating their cognitive abilities. Is it possible that boasting and failing are two sides of the same coin? As the researchers emphasize, their work highlights a general feature of self-perception: each of us tends to overlook our cognitive deficiencies.

    So why is the chasm between would-be and actual performance so gaping? Don’t we all have an interest in assessing ourselves realistically? It surely would spare us a great deal of wasted effort and perhaps a few embarrassments. The answer, it seems, is that a moderate inflation of self-esteem has certain benefits. According to a review by psychologists Shelley Taylor and Jonathon Brown, rose-colored glasses1 tend to increase our sense of well-being and our performance. On the other hand, people afflicted by depression are inclined to be brutally realistic in their selfassessments. An embellished self-image seems to help us weather the ups and downs of daily life.

(Steve Ayan. www.scientificamerican.com, 15.05.2018. Adaptado.)

¹rose-colored glasses: expressão usada como referência a uma visão positiva ou idealista.

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What night lights can tell us

    Are night lights on earth captured by satellites from outer space a good way to measure inequality? Economists Praveen Chakravarty and Vivek Dehejia, from the Mumbai-based think tank IDFC Institute, certainly believe so. They acquired images grabbed by satellites from the US Air Force Defence Meteorological Satellite Programme. These satellites circle the earth 14 times a day and record lights from the earth’s surface at night with sensors.

    Using data generated by the night lights, they studied 387 of 640 districts in 12 states in India. These districts account for 85% of India’s population and 80% of its GDP1 . Some 87% of parliamentary seats are in these districts. Using the novel methodology, the economists documented income divergence in India.

    Most of India is dark at night because there is little economic activity going on. But the delicate tracery of lights as seen from space also showed that the states are becoming more unequal between and within them. And the ratio has worsened between 1992 – a year after India embraced economic reforms – and 2013.

    While the pre-1991 years show a modest trend towards convergence of income between different states, the years after show widening divergence. “What we find is that both across states and across districts within each state, this is a wide, and widening disparity in economic activity. No, it is not that the rich are getting richer and the poor getting poorer, but that the poor are not getting richer fast enough to close the gap with the already rich,” says Dr Dehejia. So why are disparities within India rising even as standards of living are going up? Some economists believe it could be due to poor governance and lack of adequate skills for jobs in poorer areas. But, in the end, it remains a puzzle.

(Soutik Biswas. www.bbc.com, 27.05.2018. Adaptado.)

¹ GDP: Gross Domestic Product, one of the primary indicators of the state of a country’s economy.

Read the text to answer question.

What night lights can tell us

    Are night lights on earth captured by satellites from outer space a good way to measure inequality? Economists Praveen Chakravarty and Vivek Dehejia, from the Mumbai-based think tank IDFC Institute, certainly believe so. They acquired images grabbed by satellites from the US Air Force Defence Meteorological Satellite Programme. These satellites circle the earth 14 times a day and record lights from the earth’s surface at night with sensors.

    Using data generated by the night lights, they studied 387 of 640 districts in 12 states in India. These districts account for 85% of India’s population and 80% of its GDP1 . Some 87% of parliamentary seats are in these districts. Using the novel methodology, the economists documented income divergence in India.

    Most of India is dark at night because there is little economic activity going on. But the delicate tracery of lights as seen from space also showed that the states are becoming more unequal between and within them. And the ratio has worsened between 1992 – a year after India embraced economic reforms – and 2013.

    While the pre-1991 years show a modest trend towards convergence of income between different states, the years after show widening divergence. “What we find is that both across states and across districts within each state, this is a wide, and widening disparity in economic activity. No, it is not that the rich are getting richer and the poor getting poorer, but that the poor are not getting richer fast enough to close the gap with the already rich,” says Dr Dehejia. So why are disparities within India rising even as standards of living are going up? Some economists believe it could be due to poor governance and lack of adequate skills for jobs in poorer areas. But, in the end, it remains a puzzle.

(Soutik Biswas. www.bbc.com, 27.05.2018. Adaptado.)

¹ GDP: Gross Domestic Product, one of the primary indicators of the state of a country’s economy.