I have this weird experience—not sure that I describe it correctly—that some people have described me as “simultaneously the most humble and the most arrogant person they met”. From my perspective, if I believe that I am good at something, I say it with confidence, and if I believe that I am bad at something, I admit it frankly. This seems to confuse some people for some reason.
There are multiple possible explanations: maybe my behavior is less sane than I believe, maybe I use weird reference groups, but maybe… people expect consistent confidence that is mostly independent of actual skills. That is, their usual experience is probably something like “high-status people are always overconfident, low-status people are always underconfident”, and meeting someone who says “I am great at X, but I really suck at Y” is weird. In other words, other people do not really expect your confidence to be closely related to your skills. (But as I said, other explanations are also possible.)
I have this weird experience—not sure that I describe it correctly—that some people have described me as “simultaneously the most humble and the most arrogant person they met”. From my perspective, if I believe that I am good at something, I say it with confidence, and if I believe that I am bad at something, I admit it frankly. This seems to confuse some people for some reason.
There are multiple possible explanations: maybe my behavior is less sane than I believe, maybe I use weird reference groups, but maybe… people expect consistent confidence that is mostly independent of actual skills. That is, their usual experience is probably something like “high-status people are always overconfident, low-status people are always underconfident”, and meeting someone who says “I am great at X, but I really suck at Y” is weird. In other words, other people do not really expect your confidence to be closely related to your skills. (But as I said, other explanations are also possible.)