Hi folks! Welcome to the second edition of Cognitive Bias Bootcamp, a companion series to my Logical Fallacies Bootcamp series. The first installment covered The Bystander Effect. Before I move into the current bias du jour, let me reiterate what a cognitive bias is from my first installment — and also note that there is some disagreement over the exact definition of what constitutes a cognitive bias, so keep that in mind as we continue:
A cognitive bias is a (usually unconscious) error in thinking, sometimes subtle, that occurs as we process the information we take in from the world around us. They sometimes occur as part of our attempt to simplify the information our brains are processing. Sometimes they are related to memory, or to attention, as we have limited resources of both and the brain has to either consciously or unconsciously choose what to remember or to commit attention to, and a bias occurs as a result.
And now, with that out of the way, let’s move on to today’s bias: The Curse of Knowledge (aka The Curse of Expertise)!
Curse of Expertise
This one is pretty simple, and I’d be willing to bet that many of us have either encountered this before — or been guilty of it: the curse of knowledge occurs when someone with knowledge or expertise assumes that other parties they are interacting with have more knowledge in the subject than they actually do.
This bias was first officially named by economists Colin Camerer, George Loewenstein, and Martin Weber in 1989. This was a result of research done in which they determined that, even when it would be to their advantage to do so, the more knowledgeable party in a transaction or negotiation may not be able to disregard their better information and instead makes a better offer to the less-informed party than they could probably get away with.
To put it another way, a more knowledgeable negotiator in a transaction might not screw over the other party as much as they could, because they assume the other party has more knowledge about the details surrounding the transaction than they actually do.
Seems a bit cynical when you put it like that, huh? But let’s look at some other examples.
Educators at every level may run into this issue by assuming students know more than they actually do, and so being teaching the subject at a higher level than the students are prepared for.
This can have major implications for designing lessons, curriculum, designing education materials, or setting education standards.
At the academic level, a lot of researchers assume the readers of their research are dalready familiar with the subject. Which, ok, many academic papers are published in journals where the likely readers ARE also experts in the field themselves, but by writing in terms that limits the audience that can understand it, it hinders communication of the research to less-informed parties.
My own personal pet peeve — jargon. Jargon, jargon, jargon. I work in education, and OMG does the education field LOOOOVE acronyms and professional jargon. The field loves it so much they are constantly coming up with NEW acronyms and jargon All. The. Time. But I’ve run across this in other areas as well, as a citizen science volunteer, for example, speaking with scientific experts. The “in-group” doesn’t realize the average person isn’t versed in the lingo of the profession, and so suddenly when speaking — as in doing a presentation to a group — the speaker acts as if they are talking to peers in the field as opposed to laymen and uses so many acronyms and so much subject-related jargon and terminology that they might as well be speaking a foreign language. And so they lose the audience, who are still trying to figure out what was said in the first five minutes.
Be sure to differentiate when this is being done deliberately to obfuscate and to confuse an audience or to stroke the speaker’s ego, which is not a bias — it’s just being an ass. Cognitive biases are usually applied unconsciously, so to fall under the category of a cognitive bias, the expert is simply unconsciously overestimating the knowledge level of who they are interacting with.
This can also have an impact in things like marketing and advertising. If an advertiser assumes their target audience knows more than they really do, for example, an ad campaign might flop because it goes right over the intended audience’s head.
In other everyday situations, this can manifest in something as simple as Grandma Betty trying to teach the grandkids how to make some of her famous recipes that are legendary at family get togethers and church potlucks “How much milk do you add, grandma?” “Oh, just add milk until it feels right!” Obviously, Grandma Betty has been making and perfecting this recipe for 50 years and has become so adept at it that she just...makes it. But she fails to understand that her 16 year old granddaughter, as much as she might want to learn how to make grandma’s famous triple chocolate fudge cookies doesn’t have 50 years of experience cooking and making these recipes to have the necessary understanding to follow along on the fly. Grandma’s gonna have to dial it back and take it slower, and think a lot harder about things like “how do you KNOW it ‘feels right?’” and how to explain to someone without her experience.
Counteracting the Bias
Ok, so how do we counteract this bias? Well, when dealing with the bias in others it can come down to something as simple as interrupting the expert and flat out telling them you don’t understand, and they need to define terms or simplify what they’re talking about. If you’re arranging, for example, a guest speaker for a group, be sure to let the speaker know the group’s background (for example, I’d expect a little different presentation from an astronomer speaking to a group of experienced, enthusiastic members of a local amateur astronomy group than if they were talking to a newly formed high school astronomy club).
In ourselves, here are some tips to consider:
- Don’t assume. Don’t assume! DO. NOT. ASSUME! Don’t assume the level of knowledge of the person(s) you are interactive with. Ask some questions. Communicate. Get a feel for what they really know.
- Empathize. This ties into the point above, but if you can empathize more with where the other person(s) are coming from, you’re more likely to approach things in a way that they understand.
- Break it down. If you’re dealing with a complex idea or situation, it may be helpful to break things down into more easily understood elements.
- Don’t rush. Take as much time as is needed to communicate. If you get in a hurry, you’re more likely to take shortcuts in communicating (like using the jargon and acronyms I mentioned) and leave people scratching their heads. Don’t give them information with a firehose if they need it by the spoonful in order to be able to process it.
Same Bias Time, Same Bias Channel…
That’s it for today, folks! Tune in next Monday when we’ll talk about the Barnum Effect! Or in the meantime, check in with the next installments of Logical Fallacies Bootcamp on Wednesday and Friday!