The Impostor Syndrome And The Dunning-kruger Effect

[Jesper]

There are two interesting psychological effects which are on opposite sides:

1. The impostor syndrome, where an expert in some field doesn't really acknowledge to him/herself that he/she is really an expert and who is afraid of being exposed as a fraud, even though there is really no reason for it,

2. The Dunning-Kruger effect, where someone grossly overestimates his/her own ability or knowledge in some field and doesn't see how little he or she really knows.

I've noticed that sometimes I suffer from the impostor syndrome, especially when I'm being interviewed for a new job. I know I am a good and experienced software developer (I've been doing this work for almost 20 years), but at an interview I still get nervous and sometimes start to doubt my own abilities.

What are your experiences with these two effects? For the Dunning-Kruger effect, people obviously don't recognise this themselves, it's something you might have seen happening with other people.

[ALGUIMAR]

Very interesting post Jesper! Well I think both of these effects are rooted in a... denying of reality so to speak. In the impostor syndrome you go hard on yourself and you don't really see the greatness in you, only focusing on the negative aspect. In the Dunning-Kruger effect you simply just focus on the possitive aspects of yourself. Both are denying a fundamental part of reality, we need a balance between possitive aspects (to keep our confidence high) and negative aspects (to keep improving).

Moreover talking about my own experience this happens every day, its absolutely stunning how people understimate or overstimate themselves. In my case one of my hobbies are sports, in sports most athletes think of themselves better than they really are, to some extent you need that confidence, but that leaves little space to improve. On the other hand I see the impostor syndrome with my classmates (I study physiotherapy), they are mostly afraid of participating or they fear attempting to answer a question in class and so on, I know we are learning, but if you want to do this effectively you must make mistakes.

We could just say that you need a balance between seeing only your possitive qualities and the negative ones to fully understand reality and yourself.