The word for someone who thinks they're smart but aren't is often described by terms like know-it-all, pretentious, pseudo-intellectual, or overconfident, with the underlying psychological phenomenon being the Dunning-Kruger effect, where incompetence prevents self-awareness, making them overestimate their abilities.
The Dunning-Kruger effect is a type of cognitive bias in which people believe they are smarter and more capable than they are. Low-ability people do not possess the skills needed to recognize their own incompetence.
I'd say 'pseudo-intellectual'.
As it turns out, people who fall prey to the Dunning-Kruger Effect — those who are overconfident and who overestimate their competence — usually have a lower ability of Metacognition.
Tips for handling a know-it-all
Those with narcissistic tendencies also tend to think they know best—even compared to the most educated people out there and in the face of contradictory scientific evidence.
The two most reliable ways to find out, in my experience, are: (1) how they respond to be being proven wrong, or to being told that they might have overlooked things, and (2) how they respond to unconventional but fundamentally sound ideas. Smart people, know they are smart, they don't need others to validate it.
In social psychology, illusory superiority is a cognitive bias wherein people overestimate their own qualities and abilities compared to others.
Here's an amazing and even shocking fact— A person can be smart but not intelligent. You can be smart about lots of facts and yet not able to intelligently use those facts. This is the problem with most schooling.
pseudo–intellectual (noun)
Yes, agathokakological is a real, albeit rare, word, an adjective meaning "composed of both good and evil," coined by poet Robert Southey in the 1830s from Greek roots for "good" (agathos) and "bad" (kakos). It's considered a nonce word (a word created for a single occasion) and isn't in common usage, but it's officially recognized by dictionaries like the Merriam-Webster Dictionary and Oxford English Dictionary.
arrogant, conceited, vain, narcissistic.
That said, I'd nominate "doormat," "bending one's back over for somebody," or "impostor syndrome," or terms along those lines.
The Dunning-Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which people with limited competence in a particular domain overestimate their abilities. Some researchers also include the opposite effect for high performers: their tendency to underestimate their skills.
Schizophrenia is often considered one of the most challenging mental health conditions due to its complex symptoms and impact on perception of reality.
Narcissistic personality disorder is a mental health condition that is characterized by a pervasive pattern of feeling superior (grandiosity), needing admiration, and lacking empathy.
While there are many signs to indicate someone may be highly intelligent, the most common are a pleasant attitude and hardworking nature, excellent memory and recall capacity, good decision-making and problem-solving skills, high curiosity, good language proficiency, and high emotional intelligence.
The first rule of the Dunning–Kruger club is you don't know you're a member of the Dunning–Kruger club. The Dunning–Kruger effect is the tendency of people with low ability in a specific area to give overly positive assessments of this ability.
*How do you identify a smart person in 3 minutes?* Pay attention to how they ask questions. Smart people often show their intelligence through questions. They don't just ask questions, but choose the right words, get to the heart of the matter, and their questions often open up new perspectives.
🤔🚫 Five Questions a Narcissist Can't Answer 🚫🤔 Here are five questions a narcissist simply can't answer: 1️⃣ Anything regarding the truth 🧐 2️⃣ Anything about giving credit to others 🙅♂️ 3️⃣ Anything about failing or losing ❌ 4️⃣ Anything about vulnerability or their true self 🌫️ 5️⃣ Anything about their interactions ...
The top 3 rarest personality types are consistently identified as INFJ (The Advocate), ENTJ (The Commander), and INTJ (The Architect), with INFJ usually being the absolute rarest (around 1.5%), followed by ENTJ (around 1.8%), and INTJ (around 2-3%) of the general population, according to Psych Central, Redeemed Mental Health, and Reddit.
5 Ways to Manage a Know-It-All