Curse of knowledge - Wikipedia

Jump to content

Search

Search

Donate

Create account

Log in

Personal tools

Donate

Create account

Log in

Curse of knowledge

18 languages

العربية<br>Español<br>فارسی<br>Français<br>עברית<br>Bahasa Indonesia<br>Italiano<br>日本語<br>한국어<br>മലയാളം<br>Norsk bokmål<br>Polski<br>Português<br>Русский<br>Türkçe<br>Українська<br>اردو<br>中文

Edit links

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Cognitive bias of assuming others share your knowledge

The curse of knowledge , also called the curse of expertise [1] or expert's curse , is a cognitive bias that occurs when a person who has specialized knowledge assumes that others share in that knowledge.[2]

For example, in a classroom setting, teachers may struggle if they cannot put themselves in the position of the student. A knowledgeable professor might no longer remember the difficulties that a student faces when learning a new subject. This curse of knowledge also explains the danger behind thinking about student learning based on what seems best to faculty members, as opposed to what has been verified with students.[3]

History of concept<br>[edit]

The term "curse of knowledge" was coined in a 1989 Journal of Political Economy article by economists Colin Camerer, George Loewenstein, and Martin Weber. The aim of their research was to counter the "conventional assumptions in such (economic) analyses of asymmetric information in that better-informed agents can accurately anticipate the judgement of less-informed agents".[4]

Such research drew from Baruch Fischhoff's work in 1975 surrounding hindsight bias, a cognitive bias that knowing the outcome of a certain event makes it seem more predictable.[5] Research conducted by Fischhoff revealed that participants did not know that their outcome knowledge affected their responses, and, if they did know, they could still not ignore or defeat the effects of the bias. Study participants could not accurately reconstruct their previous, less knowledgeable states of mind, which directly relates to the curse of knowledge. This poor reconstruction was theorized by Fischhoff to be because the participant was "anchored in the hindsightful state of mind created by receipt of knowledge".[6] This receipt of knowledge returns to the idea of the curse proposed by Camerer, Loewenstein, and Weber: a knowledgeable person cannot accurately reconstruct what a person, be it themselves or someone else, without the knowledge would think, or how they would act. In his paper, Fischhoff questions the failure to empathize with ourselves in less knowledgeable states, and notes that how well people manage to reconstruct perceptions of lesser informed others is a crucial question for historians and "all human understanding".[6]

This research led the economists Camerer, Loewenstein, and Weber to focus on the economic implications of the concept and question whether the curse harms the allocation of resources in an economic setting. The idea that better-informed parties may suffer losses in a deal or exchange was seen as something important to bring to the sphere of economic theory. Most theoretical analyses of situations where one party knew less than the other focused on how the lesser-informed party attempted to learn more information to minimize information asymmetry. However, in these analyses, there is an assumption that better-informed parties can optimally exploit their information asymmetry when they, in fact, cannot. People cannot utilize their additional, better information, even when they should in a bargaining situation.[5]

For example, two people are bargaining over dividing money or provisions. One party may know the size of the amount being divided while the other does not. However, to fully exploit their advantage, the informed party should make the same offer regardless of the amount of material to be divided.[7] But informed parties actually offer more when the amount to be divided is larger.[8][9] Informed parties are unable to ignore their better information, even when they should.[5]

Experimental evidence<br>[edit]

A 1990 experiment by a Stanford University graduate student, Elizabeth Newton, illustrated the curse of knowledge in the results of a simple task. A group of subjects were asked to "tap" out well known songs with their fingers, while another group tried to name the melodies. When the "tappers" were asked to predict how many of the "tapped" songs would be recognized by listeners, they would always overestimate. The curse of knowledge is demonstrated here as the "tappers" are so familiar with what they were tapping that they assumed listeners would easily recognize the tune.[10][11]

Susan Birch and Paul Bloom similarly found a curse of knowledge in a study involving Yale University students. Participants were told one sister (Denise) moved her sister's (Vicki's) violin without Vicki knowing. When participants are told where Denise placed the violin, they are more likely to think Vicki will first look for the violin in that new...