> Dunning believes that ability to self-assess is also key to the effect.
> As you gain knowledge, this confidence grows.
> Specifically, narcissistic personality seems to put DK on steroids.
That collection of quotes feeds my suspicion that extreme examples of the DK effect and conspiratorial thinking (For example: vaccine-denial, birtherism, racism as "expertise" on how the outgroup "really is," and so on.) have in common the fact that they give those inflicted a much-needed sense of control over an uncertain universe. Baseball players are known for having superstitious rituals at the mound or the plate, precisely because pitcher and batter are engaged in high-stakes, high-variability activities with unpredictable success rates. Baseball players are hardly traumatized, but imagine if they were playing for their lives, or their senses of self.
I wouldn't be surprised if the fractured way that the world is presented to us after the decline of television and the rise of the internet (with its conflicting narratives) hasn't so traumatized a fraction of the population that the only way they can construct their sense of selves as in control enough to not feel permanently precarious is to habitually steer themselves away from even the hint of dissonance by constantly asserting, "I know. I am in control. This is how it is."
One of the things having one or a few sources of national news possibly did was to give one the plausible belief that their set of beliefs was tenable, stable, and unchallenged by rivals. From a scared monkey perspective, I wonder if we got lucky with broadcast television, if the perception of unity wasn't necessary. Whereas now we seem to be constantly having to defend our perceived in-group.
The point of this ramble is that maybe the psychodynamics of DK are as simple as, 'Feeling confident feels better, and I need that, and I feel rewarded when I engage in thinking that rewards that sense.'