In 1995, McArthur Wheeler and Clifton Earl Johnson attempted to rob two banks in Pittsburgh. Rather than wearing masks, Wheeler believed that smearing lemon juice on his face would make him invisible to security cameras. His reasoning was that lemon juice can be used as invisible ink because it remains unseen on paper until heat is applied. Wheeler seems to have thought the same principle would apply to his face: If lemon juice makes writing invisible, maybe it would make his face invisible to cameras.
He even tested it beforehand by putting lemon juice on his skin, taking a Polaroid photo, and seeing nothing. Likely the photo was blurry, overexposed, or mishandled, but he misinterpreted it as proof that the trick worked.
This belief led him to confidently rob the banks, smiling at the security cameras during the heists. He was soon after arrested.
When police showed him the surveillance footage, Wheeler was shocked and exclaimed, “But I wore the juice.”
News coverage of his arrest and the absurdity of his actions caught the attention of Cornell University social psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger. They hypothesized that people with low ability in a particular area often fail to recognize their lack of skill, leading them to overestimate their competence.
This led to their 1999 study, "Unskilled and Unaware of It," which introduced the Dunning-Kruger effect, a cognitive bias where people with limited knowledge or ability in a domain overestimate their competence.
The Dunning-Kruger effect has since become a fundamental concept in psychology and popular culture, shedding light on how overconfidence can stem from a lack of self-awareness.
References
Dunning, D., & Kruger, J. (1999). Unskilled and unaware of it: How difficulties in recognizing one's own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
Wikipedia contributors. (2024, August 15). 1995 Greater Pittsburgh bank robberies. In Wikipedia
Poundstone, W. (2016, June 14). “I Wore the Juice”- The Dunning-Kruger Effect. Medium.
Very interesting!