Is there a name for the inverse of the impostor syndrome? Question: The impostor syndrome seems to be common in academia and there are quite a few questions about it. I wonder if there is something like the inverse impostor syndrome.

I'm not referring to the Dunning–Kruger effect, I don't feel particularly superior to anyone. That's not it. Metaphorically: I don't feel like I have a greater slice of cake because I don't see any cake, even though everybody speaks about how big, moist and delicious their slices are and how knowledgeable they are about cakes.

To me, everybody feels like an impostor. (And everything feels like a lie)

Is there a name for this feeling? I deeply and seriously wonder about how accurate and shared it may be, if it has a name then most likely I'm not alone in this and therefore maybe I would not be completely mistaken.

End of the question.

Examples (in case you need them, I work in computer science):


Head of the department speaking about "big data" for an excel file of several megabytes.
Planning setting the deadlines looking exclusively at the calendar (and not the work).
Gantt where activity A ends before activity B starts. A requires B.
Becoming an expert on a topic overnight because it's trendy and a buzzword.
Correcting English grammar and paper structure, for the worse.
Paper reporting evaluation results before any code has been written.
Paper reporting evaluation results when the code does a different thing.
Coauthoring a paper, without even laying their eyes on it.
Directing a thesis, not checking the formulas, only the "easy" parts.
A researcher makes the GUI, gets all the credit.
Constant meetings with no agendas or minutes (or effects)
Micromanaging without actual managing
Powerpoint before actual research or Powerpoint instead any research
Re-selling old ideas with new labels and minor cosmetic changes that are for the worse
Most of the tweets with the tag #overlyhonestmethods. However that's being sloppy, I mean being an impostor, focusing solely on how things look because:


Doing some research formally (writing proofs) and empirically (developing a system and testing it with a benchmark, creating a benchmark!) and writing about it on a paper takes much longer than
Writing some fiction on a paper, which anyway takes much longer than
Subliminally collaborating on a paper and putting your name in it.



BTW: one of the problems why there are so many impostors (as I see it) is that open source code is not requested.
I have on occasion felt the same myself (sometimes still do), and know of many disillusioned PhD students who felt exactly like that. There are dark moments in the night, when you are wondering whether funding for CS will be cut down entirely eventually, when funding agencies also get to the conclusion that CS is one big science of imposters.

However, what you need to realize is that this is in fact impostor syndrome - only that you are not comparing yourself to your peers, but rather you and your peers to e.g., other sciences. However, the reason why it happens are the same: you have unrealistically high expectations of the research community, which it cannot possibly live up to in reality. You know the shortcomings of your community all too well, but do not have enough insight to see that other research communities or professions are also far from perfect. Yes, all the crap you mention happens on occasion, but guess what? We are all human, so it is simply unrealistic to assume that every professor will always be a good manager (or even a decent human being), that every dean will always still be an active and good researcher, or that every paper is always published with the most noble intentions.

I should also mention that your conclusion that, if you are not alone in this feeling, you surely need to be right, is fundamentally flawed. History has shown all over again that many people can be wrong in the same way at the same time.

Edit:

By the way, I think your question title is wrong. The opposite of the impostor syndrome is, as you say, more or less the Dunning–Kruger effect. What you are referring to is not the opposite.