The Curse of Knowledge
Spoooooooooky! A curse! Was the knowledge cursed by a witch? Nope. It’s a piece of psychological research. Haunted psychological research? Could be.
The curse of knowledge is the phenomenon where, when we have knowledge on a particular topic, we assume others understand it far more than they do. In essence, when we understand the topic so well that it seems obvious to us, we have a hard time seeing how it’s not obvious to everyone.
Try this experiment on a family member, friend, or colleague: pick a song and tap it out on a table or their arm. Ask them to identify the song. Chances are good that you will believe they should be able to get it, and chances are much better that they won’t have a clue. The song seems so obvious to us that it’s hard to imagine how the tapping sounds or feels to someone who doesn’t already know what it is.
Technical Assistance Providers need solid skills and techniques to overcome the curse of knowledge. Instead of tapping the song, what happens if we hum it? The chances of our audience understanding it go up. And what if we sing it? The likelihood of understanding goes even higher. And if we play the song on the stereo? They won’t just understand it, they’ll be able sing along. Your subject matter expertise is the song, and your TA skills are the musicians and instruments that bring it to life.
We can’t totally erase the curse of knowledge (unless you can find a mystic who knows arcane hexes) but there are things we can do to counteract its spell over us.
Say obvious things out loud. They are rarely obvious to others. When you’re preparing a training or getting ready to deliver some TA, for example, think about all the terms that you’ll be using. Be ready to define them. Check with people outside of your field about how widely known the terms are. And we can work on bringing our assumptions to the surface so that they can be spoken aloud. Because our assumptions are, well, assumed, it is difficult to bring them into our conscience mind. But cultivating a practice of regularly reflecting on what you might be assuming can help you see more and more of them. It’s your own mind starting to hum the song instead of tapping it against your skull.
Ask dumb questions. Some folks say there are no dumb questions. Me, I like to embrace them. There’s something freeing about saying, “Let me ask you a dumb question. What does _________ mean in your work?” Several years ago, I was facilitating a meeting for a coalition and its member programs; the relationships had gotten strained and the meeting was to help rebuild trust and communication. At one point in the meeting, I asked the coalition if they spoke negatively about the member programs to legislators, state administrators, or other key parties. The coalition director was shocked by the question and said, “No! Absolutely not. Never!” Several of the member programs said that they didn’t know that, and it had been a fear of theirs. Asking that question was a turning point in the meeting, because it made space for them to uncover more assumptions and allowed all of them to open up about their fears in the relationship.
In Fulcrum Practice Lab, we get into much more detail on how TA skills and techniques get your TA recipients get in tune with you. Is the Fulcrum Practice Lab haunted? Join me and find out…