Here at touch and go… the sky is not the limit, it’s just the beginning. Even after you’ve got your paragliding license in your pocket, the adventure continues, and we want to make sure you stay on the right track.
Have you heard of the Dunning-Kruger effect? Two renowned social psychologists have discovered that ignorance often leads to more self-confidence than knowledge, so people with little experience often tend to overestimate their abilities. They may not even recognize their own lack of knowledge, which can lead to risky decisions.
For the two psychologists, the following story symbolized a phenomenon that later became known as the Dunning-Kruger effect:
“One day in 1995, a bank in Pittsburg was robbed in the middle of the day. A man, not wearing a mask, smiled at the surveillance cameras after committing the crime. By the evening, the police had already arrested the stunned perpetrator. When they showed him the CCTV footage, he couldn’t believe his eyes: He had been wearing “the juice” after all. It turned out that he had thought that rubbing himself with lemon juice would make him invisible to the surveillance cameras. After all, lemon juice is also used for invisible ink. If he just stayed away from the heat, he concluded, he would be completely invisible.”
The ‘Mount of Stupidity’ model is about recognizing the threshold of the “Peak of Stupidity” and avoiding falling into the “Valley of Despair”.
Failure to recognize the ‘Peak of Stupidity’ can not only hinder your progress, but also set back your entire flying career or even cause you to give up flying. Only after you realize how inexperienced you really are will you begin to build a solid foundation of knowledge and skills that will guide you on a long and happy flying career.
