The opposite would be the Dunning-Kruger effect: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Dunning-Kruger_effect https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Dunning-Kruger_effect There'

The opposite would be the Dunning-Kruger effect: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Dunning-Kruger_effect https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Dunning-Kruger_effect There's also the (closely related) illusory superiority effect (i.e. "everyone's an above average driver"): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_superiority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_superiority Consulting disabused me of this mindset pretty quickly. As I took on tasks outside my expertise (e.g. project management, contract negotiation, marketing, devops, etc.), I had direct proof that said expertise was far more limited than I'd realized. I might be good at engineering (and even there, I've gained more of an appreciation for where my skillset starts and ends), but there's a lot I don't know. Aside from that: talk to people outside your field, and take the time to deeply listen. Nearly everyone I talk to, whether they're a field biologist, a welder, a sommelier, a lawyer, or an art history expert, takes something for granted that I have no idea about. In many cases, I've been surprised by how deep and interesting knowledge outside my field can be, and I've been forced to re-evaluate my earlier belief that engineers are somehow superior to other walks of human life. For instance: did you know that humans exhibit marked sex differences in olfactory perception? [1] I learned this from a scientifically-minded wine expert on the bus from Montréal to Toronto. That's the kind of thing I'm talking about: people know things you can't imagine. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4221136/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4221136/