UPDATE: wow, never thought this post would take off this much! thanks
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Impostor syndrome is where someone doubts their own abilities, qualifications, or expertise. More specifically, it happens to individuals who become more and more knowledgeable about their given field of expertise, which seems paradoxical. If you think about, it makes sense; the more you learn about a given field (in other words, the more of an expert you become), the more you realize just how vast the scope and depth of the knowledge in that field is. The nuances, intricacies, and details about a specific field of knowledge (of which the average person might not be aware) start to become apparent to you. You might then realize just how much there is to know about that field, and you might realize that the amount you actually DO know pales in comparison. Further, you might compare yourself to other experts in the same field, and might think that they know far more about it than you do (even though you might be just as qualified, or even more qualified than them). All of this may contribute towards the feeling of being an ‘impostor’ (feeling like you are unworthy of being called in expert, despite actually being qualified as such), hence the name ‘impostor syndrome’.
This (in my view) is the opposite of the Dunning-Kruger effect, in which people with a low level of knowledge in a field tend to overestimate their competence in that field and view themselves as experts. Again, the less you know about a field, the less aware you are of the scope, depth, nuances, intricacies, and details of that field. For example, imagine a young child who got a 98% on a math test. They may very well tell you, “I’m great at math,” “I really know a lot about math,” or even “I’m an expert in math!” However, they are unaware of so much higher-level mathematical concepts, equations, problems, etc., and because of that, they are overestimating just how good they are in that field. They would be falling into the bias of the Dunning-Kruger effect. However, if you were to ask someone who had a PhD in mathematics, they would obviously know way more than the young child, but because they are more aware about the wide scope and depth of their field, they may hesitate to make claims boasting about their expertise. In fact, they may even hesitate to call themselves experts. This would be an example of impostor syndrome.
Hope this helps.
P.S. Take my explanation with a grain of salt – I’m no expert.
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