Cognitive Biases - The Dunning - Kruger Effect - Illusory Superiority and Imposter Syndrome

The Dunning Kruger Effect is type of a Illusory Superiority bias
In which people tend to believe that they are smarter and more capable than they actually are. Low ability people, do not possess the skills needed to recognize their own incompetence. The combination of poor self-awareness and low cognitive ability leads them to overestimate their capabilities.
You've probably experienced this phenomenon in real life, around the dinner table at a family gathering, a member of your extended family spouts off on a topic at length, boldly proclaiming that he is correct and that everyone else's opinion is stupid and uninformed. While it may be evident that this person has no idea what he is talking about.
The effect is named after the social psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger, who first described it. In one of their experiments, they asked the participants to rate how funny different jokes were. Some participants were exceptionally poor at determining what other people would find funny, and yet these subjects described themselves as excellent judges of humor.
Incompetent people, are not only poor performers but are also unable to properly assess and recognize the quality of their work. This is perhaps why students who earn failing scores in exams sometimes feel they deserve a much higher score. They overestimate their knowledge and ability and cannot accurately assess their performance. The incompetent are often blessed with an inappropriate confidence, buoyed by something that feels to them like knowledge.
The Dunning-Kruger effect can have a profound impact on what people believe, the decisions they make, and the actions they take.
So what explains this psychological effect? Are some people simply too dense to recognize their shortcomings? Dunning and Kruger suggest that this phenomenon stems from what they refer to as a "dual burden." People are not only incompetent; they also lack the mental ability to realize just how inept they are.
Incompetent people tend to overestimate their skill levels, and are unable to recognize the genuine skill and expertise of other people, they also fail to recognize their own mistakes and lack of skill
The very knowledge and skills necessary to be good at a task, are the same qualities that a person needs to recognize that they are not good at that task. So if a person lacks those abilities, they remain not only bad at that task but ignorant of their inability.
This effect has been attributed to a number of different explanations, including:
An Inability to Recognize Lack of Skill and Mistakes
A Lack of Metacognition
Incomplete Knowledge leading to Overconfidence
The use of heuristics, or mental shortcuts that allow people to make decisions quickly
A tendency to seek out patterns even when there are none
So, who is affected by the Dunning-Kruger effect? Everyone is susceptible to this phenomenon, and most of us probably experience it with surprising regularity. Genuine experts in one area may mistakenly believe that their intelligence and knowledge carries over into other areas in which they have less knowledge, for example, A brilliant scientist, might be a very poor writer, but because he lacks good knowledge of grammar and composition, he can’t recognize his poor performance.
It is important to note that The Dunning-Kruger effect is not synonymous with low IQ.
Some believe that the The Dunning Kruger Effect doesn't exists
Dunning-Kruger Effect vs. Imposter Syndrome
People at the high end of the competence spectrum hold more realistic views of their and others knowledge and capabilities. However, these experts actually tend to underestimate their own abilities.
This can sometimes lead to the opposite of the Dunning-Kruger effect—The imposter syndrome. The Dunning-Kruger effect involves over confidence in one's abilities, and this opposing tendency involves under confidence. In imposter syndrome, competent people doubt their own abilities and fear that others will think of them to be frauds.
How to Overcome the Dunning-Kruger Effect
According to Dunning, we are all what he calls "engines of misbelief." While we are all prone to this bias, learning more about how the mind works and the mistakes we are all susceptible to might be one step toward correcting such patterns. As people learn more about the topic of interest, they begin to recognize their lack of knowledge and ability. Then as people gain more information and become experts on a topic, their confidence levels begin to improve again.
To gain a more realistic assessment of your abilities in a particular area,
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