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Impostor Syndrome vs. the Dunning-Kruger Effect

raptori.dev

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Re: Impostor Syndrome vs. the Dunning-Kruger Effect

#5

Dunning-Kruger effect has become the most abused and overused piece of pop psych in the history. God I wish we could just erased it from the collective vocabulary.

Agreed, though I think it's reasonable to say the overuse is somewhat nice as it allows you to quickly identify who suffers from it and ignore them.

Re: Impostor Syndrome vs. the Dunning-Kruger Effect

#6
I think that impostor syndrome is inextricably linked with Dunning-Kruger.

I believe that impostor syndrome is a lack of overconfidence in one's abilities- that implies that you have the ability to assess competence and to assess the skills needed for a job or task, and you don't default to "I know I can do it well". When you encounter a novel job or task, you don't immediately assume competence, and you will remain uncertain until you fully understand the requirements of the job or task. A lot of impostor syndrome comes from "don't fully understand what's required, but it looked complicated from the outside", and will go away with greater understanding provided you actually have the skills and the competence to self-assess.

If you lacked the ability to assess competence in yourself, then you likely would not have impostor syndrome.

I don't see why it's a balance. Impostor syndrome typically lessens over time as you become familiar with the job/task and the requirements necessary to perform well, and are better able to assess your own skills against those requirements.

If impostor syndrome doesn't go away with time, maybe you are correctly assessing that you don't (yet) have the requisite skills.

If you never get impostor syndrome, then you either aren't challenging yourself or you might not have the subject area competence to assess your own skills level vs. the jobs/tasks you take on, e.g. Dunning-Kruger effect.

Re: Impostor Syndrome vs. the Dunning-Kruger Effect

#7
> For me, the first step towards that mindset was understanding that you can make mistakes without it reflecting on your competence

Works well for impostor syndrome folks. But I think what the people in the back (the DK folks), need to consider is that you can also do well without it reflecting on your overall competence.

It's more about putting ego aside altogether. You're a mushy piece of meat that thinks. Feel good about your accomplishments, feel bad when you fuck up, learn and move on.

Re: Impostor Syndrome vs. the Dunning-Kruger Effect

#8

Dunning-Kruger effect has become the most abused and overused piece of pop psych in the history. God I wish we could just erased it from the collective vocabulary.

Agreed, though I think it's reasonable to say the overuse is somewhat nice as it allows you to quickly identify who suffers from it and ignore them.

It seems your ability to practically apply the knowledge about Dunning-Kruger effect is suffering from Dunning-Kruger effect.

Re: Impostor Syndrome vs. the Dunning-Kruger Effect

#9

Dunning-Kruger effect has become the most abused and overused piece of pop psych in the history. God I wish we could just erased it from the collective vocabulary.

All popular phrases go through that phase where it is recklessly used to the point that you don't know what anyone means by it. At some point it ends up being (for some people) a pejorative that you can read simply as "I don't like it".

Dunning-Kruger certainly has reached that point, you have to really dig to figure out if they're just throwing the phrase around or they're applying it in a thoughtful manner.

All sorts of phrases end up that way. "virtue signaling", a phrase I've never been a fan of has ended up that way too.

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