How to Break the Curse of Knowledge by Driving a Car

You are an expert on something.

Even if you don’t know what that thing is yet, it’s a fact. And because you’re an expert, the Curse of Knowledge applies to you! Not sure what the Curse is? I’m going to explain it, and tell you how to beat it by driving a car.  But first, let me tell you a story about something that happened to me last week.

Last week I signed up for a short online course on how to use the popular online graphic design app, Canva.  I’ve got a website so, you know, I wanted to learn how to do some fancy stuff with images, etc. I logged on to the course and began watching the first video.  The teacher was excellent! She spoke slowly and clearly, and carefully demonstrated each step in the process she was teaching.  I opened up the Canva app, excited and confident that I could now replicate the process.  

But when I looked at the app I stopped in my tracks.  I couldn’t find a single one of the buttons she had clicked, or the menus she had opened.  I literally couldn’t do any of the steps she had so carefully explained in her video.  I almost gave up right then and quit the class (many students would have), but I decided to try to figure out what was going on first.  It took me about 15 minutes to realize that the reason nothing looked right was that I had to open a new project in Canva before I could get to all of the steps she had demonstrated.  Once I opened the project, I was easily able to complete the rest of the steps.

Why didn’t this good teacher start her tutorial by opening a new project in Canva?  It’s because it was so blatantly obvious to her that you have to do that first, that she didn’t even think to explain it.  That step in the process was literally invisible to her.

This was an “aha!” moment for me, and a perfect example of the forces at work when we fall under the Curse of Knowledge.

The Curse of Knowledge

You think about, write about, read about, and talk about the ideas related to your area of expertise every day.  As a result, you are intimately familiar with those ideas.  They seem obvious and easy to you. That’s why you are an expert! But it is also the very reason it can be challenging to explain those ideas to someone who is new to your topic. It’s easy to forget that things that seem simple and not worth mentioning to you have enormous value for a beginner. Not learning those basic concepts can be a roadblock to their learning. Here’s another example to help you think about this challenge.

Imagine you are trying to teach someone to drive a car (for those of you with older kids, this will be easy!).  How do you explain the steps?  Maybe something like this:

1. Get in the car
2. Start the car
3. Put the car in drive
4. Push the accelerator

But what if your student asked you: uh, how do I start the car?  You might revise your instructions to begin:

1. Get in the car
2. Put the key in the ignition
3. Put your right foot on the brake
4. Turn the key

I know, I know, no cars actually have keys that you turn anymore, but you get my point!  All of those little steps might have seemed so obvious that they were literally invisible to you. As a result, you didn’t include them in your explanation. (To tell you the truth, I had to go out and get in my car to confirm that it’s the RIGHT foot that goes on the brake!) But to a first-time driver, those little steps have to be learned and practiced in order to become familiar.

The Curse of Knowledge is in action when you assume that your audience or your students have the background information they need to understand what you are teaching them when they don’t. If we’re not careful, just like my Canva lesson last week, this kind of mistake could cause us to lose our students or our audience forever!

Why we fall under the curse

I’m going to talk about three different reasons we might fall under the Curse of Knowledge when we are trying to teach or explain something.  They all share a similar theme, but are caused by different things. Then we’ll talk about what you can do to break the Curse!  

Three reasons we might fall under the Curse:

1. We’re so familiar with our topic that we leave out key information because it seems obvious to us, or may even be invisible. (Like opening a project in Canva, or explaining how to start a car.)
2. Because information we know seems obvious to us, we begin to feel that it doesn’t have much value, so we intentionally don’t include it. (Who would want to know this? or This is too simple to include!)
3. We’re worried that people won’t think we are experts, so we consciously or unconsciously make the topic complicated so that we will sound like an authority.

Familiarity breeds…invisibility!

I’ve given you two examples of an expert being so familiar with their topic that they skipped information when they explained an idea.  In these examples, the teacher was explaining a process, and left out key steps.  Leaving out steps is a common example of the “invisibility effect” of the Curse of Knowledge, but there are other instances where the invisibility effect can come into play.

One we can all relate to is alphabet soup.  Yes, the dreaded acronym!  From BMPs (best management practices) to SEO (search engine optimization), you can’t dive far into any topic without encountering dozens of abbreviations specific to that area of knowledge.  

Every one of us has experienced a presentation where the speaker dropped a few acronyms we had never heard.  Most likely, we just sat quietly and missed the point.  If we did stir up the courage to raise our hand and ask what it meant, the speaker may have seemed genuinely taken by surprise that she hadn’t already spelled it out!

The value of what you know

One really unfortunate version of the Curse of Knowledge is when, because we know something well, we begin to feel that our knowledge is not just obvious, but without value. This can make us feel like we really have nothing to teach anyone, and that is never true! The worst version of this effect is Imposter Syndrome, where we literally feel like we are not qualified to teach the thing we know so well. (Stay tuned next week when I will have a lot more to say about Imposter Syndrome!)

The ultimate effect of undervaluing your knowledge ends up looking the same to your students as the “invisibility effect”. You leave out key steps or information they need to understand the idea you are explaining.  But the worst thing about this version of the Curse of Knowledge is that you may never give people the benefit of teaching what you know at all.

Be a better expert by making things simple

The evil twin of underestimating the value of your knowledge is fearing that your audience or students will think you’re not an expert.  This can lead to presenting information in an unnecessarily complicated way to make it sound more worthwhile.  For example, consider these two statements which mean more or less the same thing:

1. Obfuscating meaning though esoteric terminology is a stratagem sometimes used by unconfident presenters to improve others’ view of their competence in the subject.
2. Some people think using big words makes them sound smart.

If you are in a line of work where you need to read articles in academic journals, I guarantee you can relate to this! I had an experience in college that really changed the way I thought about people who wrote using “insecure expert speak”.  At that time, I read a lot of science journal articles, and I was very familiar with the complex language used by researchers to describe their work.

But one time I happened upon an article that totally changed the way I thought about how experts could write.  It was on the fascinating topic of kelp, and the author was one of the top authorities in kelp ecology.  The paper struck me because, from the first paragraph, the writing was clear, simple and extraordinarily readable.  He used very few big words to explain the key concepts of his paper.  I remember thinking, “Wow!  This guy really knows what he’s talking about – he explains it so clearly!”

If our goal is to clearly explain an idea to our students or an audience, the more simply we can express the key ideas, the more likely they are to understand. And, as it turns out, the more easily people can understand what we are telling them, the more likely they are to think of us as an expert!

4 strategies to break the Curse of Knowledge

It can be difficult to recognize when we are falling under the Curse of Knowledge. It wouldn’t be considered a curse otherwise! Like all good teaching skills, this one requires practice to improve. When you are getting ready to give a presentation or developing a workshop or course, try these 4 tips to make sure you are giving your audience the information they need to take in your message!.

Try to imagine what it was like the first time you learned the material

When you are developing an explanation of a process or idea that you want to teach, work on putting yourself in the shoes of a beginner who has never been exposed to the information. You’ll have to practice doing this to overcome the invisibility effect caused by your familiarity with the topic!  Here’s an exercise to help you think about how this process might feel.

The next time you’re driving somewhere, as you approach your car, say out loud every step it takes to get from outside your car to driving down the street as if you were explaining it to someone who has never driven a car.  You might start with, “Use the handle to open the driver’s side door.” Then, “Sit down and close the door.”  Next you might say, “Take the key and put it in the ignition, which is located to the right of the steering wheel.”

Just spend a couple of minutes doing this so you can experience what it feels like to put yourself in the shoes of someone driving for the first time. Using this type of thinking when you are developing a description of a process or idea you want to teach can help you spot the key steps or information your students need that you might otherwise have missed.

Remove acronyms from your slides and your speaking

This strategy may sound easy, but it’s harder than you think!  Some of the acronyms or abbreviations we use day in and day out in our own work just flow out of our mouths without us noticing them.

One way to practice this is to look at a slide presentation you’ve developed for a workshop or class. In a separate document, make a list of all the acronyms you use in the presentation, and what each means.  Glance at the list before you get in front of your students or audience so you remember to spell them out the first time you use them!

Use real examples or case studies in your presentations

When you give people real concrete examples related to ideas or processes you want to teach them, these “stories” make it easier for them to understand. Human brains are hard-wired to process and understand stories, and telling them improves both students’ understanding and their recall of key concepts. In fact, I used this strategy to communicate the idea of the Curse of Knowledge when I told the Canva story at the beginning of this post!

One reason an example, case study or story works is that they are easier to visualize than a list of instructions. As a result, your students will be able to follow along more easily, and even fill in gaps if you leave anything out. Another advantage of using stories is that you are less likely to leave out key steps!  Because the story is like a movie playing in your own mind when you tell it, it can help you see and include the most important information.

Create an environment that encourages your audience to ask questions if they don’t understand!

One really easy way to make sure you aren’t leaving out information that your students need is to make them feel comfortable asking when they don’t understand! Making students feel that it’s ok to speak up when they aren’t sure about something will help you identify points in your instruction where you may be inadvertently leaving out key information. Creating this type of interactive environment also has the advantage of making your presentation a lot more enjoyable for your students and for you.

To summarize, we fall under the Curse of Knowledge when we consciously or unconsciously assume that our audience or students have the background information they need to understand what we are teaching them when they don’t. To break the Curse of Knowledge, practice putting yourself in the shoes of a beginner, be confident in the value of what you know, and don’t try to sound like a know-it-all!  Also, give your students the freedom to ask when they don’t understand, and you and your class will have a more productive, and a more pleasant learning experience.

Practice these methods and before long, breaking the Curse of Knowledge will be as easy as driving a car.

Do you have any good stories about falling under the Curse of Knowledge?  I’d love to read them in the comments below.  And please, share any other strategies you have for breaking the Curse!  

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