David A. Dunning

David Dunning is the Mary Ann and Charles R. Walgreen Jr. Professor of the Study of Human Understanding, professor of psychology, an associate chair of the Department of Psychology, and faculty affiliate at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. His research centers on the psychology underlying personal misbeliefs and social misunderstandings. In his most widely-cited work, he showed that people commonly hold flattering opinions of their competence, character, and prospects that cannot be justified from objective evidence—a phenomenon carrying many implications for health, education, the workplace, and economic exchange. Dunning’s other research focuses on decision-making more directly. He explores how people actively distort their reasoning to favor preferred conclusions and avoid threatening ones, even down to the level of perceptual experience, what they literally see. In work on economic games, he explores how choices commonly presumed to be economic in nature hinge more on psychological and social factors, such as emotion and norms. In particular, he documents that people trust complete strangers in situations where the economic analysis would suggest no trust whatsoever.  

He received his BA from Michigan State University and PhD from Stanford University.