"One of the painful things about our time is that those who feel certainty are stupid, and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision."
The Dunning–Kruger effect
is a cognitive bias that encompasses two tropes:
- Ignorant of Their Own Ignorance: Someone who is incompetent overestimating their abilities because they don't even realize how incompetent they are.
- I Thought Everyone Could Do That: Someone who is lucky underestimating the outside forces that shored them up, and who thinks everyone else has the same advantages they do.
Contrast Heroic Self-Deprecation where true heroic acts are not perceived as such by the character.
