By overestimating our knowledge and our level of competence, we run the risk of getting into trouble and becoming the object of ridicule. Why, having become acquainted with the subject only superficially, we already consider ourselves experts? And how to avoid the temptation to look smarter and more educated than we really are?
Some of us think we are brilliantly educated and well versed in music, politics, philosophy, history, literature, and quantum mechanics. But isn’t it time to be more critical of yourself?
A team of scientists from Cornell University and Tulane University in Louisiana set out to figure out why some people are more likely than others to pretend they know something they don’t really know.1. Everyone has experienced this: “Have you seen this movie?” – “Yes, yes, of course, excellent camera work” (although we are talking about a low-quality Hollywood action movie). An experiment conducted by psychologists showed that people who consider themselves experts in any field are more likely to “recognize” non-existent terms invented specifically for the study.
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The experiment consisted of three parts. In the first part A group of one hundred people were offered 15 economic terms, 3 of which scientists invented: mortgage options, fixed induction, and interest rate stagnation. The task of the participants was to mark the terms they were familiar with. “As a result,” said lead researcher Stav Avir, “those who thought they were good at economics were more likely to say they were familiar with made-up terms.” Similar results were obtained when economic terms were replaced by biological, linguistic, and others. Even after the researchers warned the participants in the second part of the experiment that some of the terms were fake, the presumptuous “experts” were more likely to fall into the trap.
To demonstrate the connection between professional self-esteem and “recognition” of non-existent things, in the third part of the experiment, participants were divided into three groups. All three groups had to identify 15 American place names, but the first group was given a very simple test in geography, the second – an incredibly difficult one, and the third (control) – none at all. Naturally, the participants in the first group, who believed after a simple test that they were great experts in geography, “recognized” non-existent cities, and the second group, whose self-esteem was lowered due to the exceptional complexity of their test, tended to doubt even real cities.
The conclusion is simple: when studying a subject, we begin to think that we have already learned everything, and we quit classes, believing ourselves to be experts. However, since we still feel that we have not learned enough about the subject, we are painfully afraid of being caught in ignorance – and therefore we get into a mess. The only worthy way out of this situation is not to be embarrassed by ignorance and avoid the temptation to deceive yourself and others.
1 S. Avir et al. «When knowledge knows no bounds. Self-Perceived expertise predicts claims of impossible knowledge», Psychological Science, 8 мая 2015 года.