Clearly you must be mistaken:
1. Firstly, in any sample of equally competent or incompetent people, you will quite likely find varying levels of confidence.For example, if 20 kids with no swimming skills whatsoever sign up for a beginners' class, you will find a few kids with extraordinary confidence, and few kids who cling desperately to the edge of the pool and scream for Mummy to come save them.
2. Your key point is that competence builds confidence, and I don't disagree with that - what I disagree with is the absolute manner with which you have made that point. You don't see, for instance that confidence can stem from any number of factors other than competence - for example, a person who does not fear the consequences of failure will be confident even if he is incompetent. So for instance, a person may confidently step up to the karaoke mike and sing even though he is musically incompetent; simply because he is not afraid to embarrass himself and sees it all as just good fun really.
3. You also don't see that
confidence can build
competence. The confident kid who boldly jumps into the pool even though he can't swim, and keeps trying to kick and splash and stroke and float as directed by his coach will learn to swim much sooner than the frightened kid who's still clinging to the edge of the pool.
4. You also fail to see that a lack of confidence can impede competence. You may be very competent in something - for example, in engineering - but a lack of confidence impedes your own competence. For example, you are asked to give a speech on Topic X, or compete in a tennis match. You actually know the topic very well, or you acually can play tennis very well, but your lack of confidence ---> nervousness ---> mistakes and errors ----> a much less competent performance than you should actually be able to deliver.
5. The "competence builds confidence" argument works best, really, for endeavours requiring a high degree of skill. For example, we may justifiably say that you cannot be confident about performing heart surgery unless you have acquired competence through proper medical training. However, there are numerous other everyday situations where confidence is pretty much the solution in itself, as opposed to competence that has to be acquired through extensive training and skill. Basic social interaction is a prime example. Sure you need to know some things like how to shake hands, say hello and introduce yourself - but even kids know that. The knowledge is not the issue, the confidence is.
6. Let me add that competence doesn't always lead to confidence either. In your own experience, you must have come across people who possess quite decent skills in X (based on some objective measure), and yet are insecure about themselves and don't believe that they're good.
I think I've pretty much chewed through your points. You may wish to do a rethink of your hypothesis.
But don't lose confidence, ok.
