If you have been unlucky enough to miss all the action over on Channel 5's Celebrity Big Brother recently, then you've missed some of the most bizarre behaviour ever seen from a fellow human being.
And that human being (and I use that term loosely) is gossip column blogger Perez Hilton: as big a slice of arrogance, insecurity, delusion and narcissism as I have ever truly never before ever ever ever ever seen. Ever.
The Dunning Kruger Effect may be a wonderful way of explaining such behaviour. The effect was theorised in 1999 by David Dunning and Justin Kruger on the back of the tragic/oh-my-god-that-is-funny case of bank robber McArthur Wheeler. Instead of wearing a balaclava to disguise his face, Wheeler opted for the slightly less conventional lemon juice, under the false notion that lemon juice rendered him invisible to security cameras "but I wore the juice, man! I wore the juice!".
As Wikipedia says
The Dunning Kruger effect is a cognitive bias wherein unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly rating their ability much higher than is accurate. This bias is attributed to a metacognitive inability of the unskilled to recognize their ineptitude. Conversely, highly skilled individuals tend to underestimate their relative competence, erroneously assuming that tasks which are easy for them are also easy for others.
So now we're all armchair psychologists, let's have a look at three of Perez's recent actions and try to figure out what's going on.
1. Chair bothering
How anyone, anyone, could think stripping to one's underwear and performing disgraceful sexual simulations against one's set of helpless garden chairs is an agreeable artistic endeavour is beyond me, sirrah! That is, unless that person had a metacognitive bias and was convinced his actions were a brilliant idea.
2. Alexander O Neil bothering
Again, how anyone would think it would be a chipper idea to wake and then menacingly leer at a fellow housemate at 6AM is hard to comprehend. Unless that person was unable to judge the validity of those ideas. DK FTW!
3. Celebrity Big Brother Viewer bothering
Perez is self- assured. Perez is always right. Perez will always want to be the most important because he is the most important. Ah yes, the arrogance of ignorance: cornerstones of Fox News, Perez Hilton and the Dunning Kruger Effect. The pain!
So, there you have it: just about every egregious error Perez has made can probably be framed within the context of Dunning Kruger. Throw in a heavy dose of narcisissim, a shed load of insecurity and I think we have a good scientific model of what defines PH (and that's not meant to be a reference to his acidic personality by the way, hahahh lolz).
But what do you think? Have you heard of the Dunning Kruger Effect? Do you think CBB is a travesty? Do you think he should stay? Oh, has he been voted off? Then why not say so in the comments or hook up with me on Twitter.
Images copyright Channel 5 Television