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The better he got, the worse he knew he was.

The inverse Dunning–Kruger effect: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect

Why do you say it is the inverse and not the regular Dunning-Kruger effect?

Surely silvestrov miswrote and meant "converse", not "inverse".

And it's because the classic statement of the Dunning-Kruger effect is that the unskilled have an unrealistically high estimation of their own abilities. It doesn't talk about what the skilled think.

Inverse is correct.

D-K effect is "If a person is unskilled, then they have high estimation of their abilities."

Converse is: "If a person has a high estimation of their abilities, then they are unskilled."

Inverse is: "If a person is skilled, then they would have a low estimation of their abilities." <-- this matches silv's assertion

Actually, it does say. People assume that they're closer to average than they are, whether they're above or below the true average. The Wikipedia link above even says "the highly skilled underrate their own abilities, suffering from illusory inferiority."

That has much to do with culture, though, see note [9].

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