The Dunning-Kruger effect is a defense mechanism for one’s self-esteem, basically the opposite of impostor syndrome.
They have few skills and very little talent, yet they are convinced that they are superior minds. They are those who “suffer” from a syndrome opposite to that of the impostor, the so-called Dunning-Kruger effect, named after the two researchers who investigated this mental attitude about twenty years ago.
Cognitive distortion. This is the phenomenon that means that the more ignorant you are about something, the less you realize you are. A cognitive distortion that mainly concerns cases in which people have below-average skills: bad drivers systematically overestimate their driving ability, for example; the same happens to those who – despite having a marginal role – must estimate their own importance in the work environment, and so on.
Why does this happen? The researchers’ hypothesis is that the Dunning-Kruger effect is a defense mechanism for one’s self-esteem.
