“The curse of knowledge” ( English curse of knowledge ) is one of the cognitive distortions in human thinking (see their list ); the term proposed by psychologist Robin Hogarth to refer to a psychological phenomenon, namely that it is extremely difficult for more informed people to consider a problem from the point of view of less informed people [1] .
During the experiment, one group of participants “tapped” the motive of a famous song on the table, and the other group had to guess this song. At the same time, according to participants from the “tapping” group, at least 50% of the listeners should have guessed the song, but in reality only 2.5% of the listeners could correctly identify the song [2] [3] . Charade players are also faced with a similar phenomenon: it is difficult for a performer to believe that his teammates are not able to guess the secret phrase that he conveys in pantomime .
According to some psychologists, the “curse of knowledge” can create learning difficulties [4] .
Content
History
The term “curse of knowledge” was first described in the Journal of Political Economy by economists Colin Kamer , George Lowenstein and Martin Weber . The purpose of their study was to counter “traditional assumptions in such (economic) analyzes of asymmetric information that more informed agents can accurately predict the decisions of less informed agents” [5] .
Such a study is based on the work of Baruch Fishhoff, written in 1975 and related to the highsite error , the tendency to perceive events that have already occurred, as obvious and predictable, despite the lack of sufficient information to predict them. [1] Studies by Baruch Fishhoff showed that participants did not know that their knowledge influenced their answers, but even if they knew, they still could not ignore or overcome this effect. The study participants were unable to return to their previous, less knowledgeable state, which directly relates to the effect of the curse of knowledge. According to Fishhoff, this was because “the minds of the participants were in a state of highsite error as a result of gaining knowledge” [6] . This acquisition of knowledge relates us to the idea of the curse of knowledge proposed by Cameré, Levenshtein, and Weber: a person with knowledge cannot accurately reproduce how a person without knowledge can think or act. In his article, Fishhoff calls into question the inability to empathize with oneself in a less informed state, and notes that the ability of people to recreate the perception of less informed people is a critical issue for historians and “human understanding” [6] .
This study made economists Cameré, Levenshtein, and Weber focus on the economic implications of the concept and question whether the curse of knowledge really harms resource allocation under economic conditions. The idea that more informed parties may suffer losses during a transaction or exchange was perceived as something important in the field of economic theory. Most theoretical analyzes of situations in which one of the parties knew less than the other, focused on how the less informed side tried to find out more detailed information to minimize information asymmetry. However, there is an assumption that more informed parties may make optimal use of information asymmetries when they, in fact, cannot do this. People cannot ignore additional, more complete information, even when they should do this during bidding [4] .
For example, two people are bargaining about sharing money or provisions. One of the parties may know the size of the shared amount, while the other may not. However, in order to take full advantage of their advantage, the informed party must make the same offer, regardless of the amount of funds shared [7] . But in fact, informed parties offer more when the shared amount is larger [8] [9] . Informed parties cannot ignore more complete information, even when they should do it [1] .
Experimental data
An experiment conducted in 1990 by Stanford University graduate Elizabeth Newton illustrated the curse of knowledge in the results of a simple assignment. One group of participants “tapped” the motive of famous songs on the table, and another group was supposed to name these melodies. When people from the “tapping” group were asked to predict how many songs would be guessed by listeners, they overestimated their number. The curse of knowledge manifests itself here in the fact that people from the “tapping” group were well acquainted with what they tapped on the table, so they suggested that it would be easy for the audience to recognize the melody. In fact, only 2.5% of listeners were able to correctly identify the song [10] .
A 2003 study by Susan Burch and Paul Bloom used the concept of the curse of knowledge to explain the idea that people's ability to reason about another person’s actions is undermined by knowledge of the outcome of the event. A person’s perception of the likelihood of an event is also somewhat mediated by bias. If the event was less plausible, knowledge was not so much a “curse” as in situations where there was a potential explanation for how another person could act [11] .
In addition, recently, researchers have linked the bias of the curse of knowledge with false beliefs in children and adults, as well as with the theory of the difficulty in developing mental abilities in children. Charade players are also faced with a similar phenomenon: it is difficult for a performer to believe that his teammates are not able to guess the secret phrase that he conveys in pantomime .
Consequences
An article by Camerére, Levenshtein, and Weber notes that the conditions that are closest in structure to ongoing market experiments are underwriting , in which informed experts charge prices for goods that are then sold to a less informed public. Investment bankers value securities , experts taste cheeses, buyers watch how jewelry is created, and movie theater owners watch movies before they go on sale. They then sell these products to a less informed public. If they suffer from the curse of knowledge, the price of high-quality goods will be overestimated, and for low-quality goods - underestimated in relation to optimal, maximizing profit; prices will reflect characteristics (eg quality) that are not obvious to uninformed buyers [1] . In such circumstances, the curse of knowledge has a paradoxical effect. By making more informed agents believe that their knowledge is shared by others, the curse of knowledge helps to alleviate the shortcomings that arise as a result of information asymmetries - the more informed side has an advantage during trading - which brings the results closer to complete information. In such circumstances, the curse of knowledge can really improve social well-being [1] .
Application
Economists Kamerre, Levenshtein and Weber first applied the phenomenon of the curse of knowledge in the field of economics in order to explain why and as the assumption that more informed agents can accurately predict the judgments of less informed agents, in essence, is not true. They also sought to support the conclusion that sales agents who are better informed about their products may actually be at a disadvantage when selling their products to other, less informed agents. The reason for this is that more informed agents are not able to ignore the privileged knowledge that they possess, and thus are “cursed”, and are not able to sell their products at a cost that more naive agents might find acceptable [1] [12] .
According to some psychologists, the “curse of knowledge” can create learning difficulties [4] . The curse of knowledge implies that judging how students view and study teaching material from the perspective of a teacher, and not students, can be potentially ineffective and dangerous. The teacher already has knowledge that he is trying to convey, but the method of transferring knowledge may not be suitable for those who do not have this knowledge.
See also
- Dunning - Krueger effect
- False consensus effect
- Information asymmetry
- Cognitive Distortion List
Notes
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 5 6 Camerer, Colin; George Loewenstein & Mark Weber. The curse of knowledge in economic settings: An experimental analysis (English) // Journal of Political Economy : journal. - 1989. - Vol. 97 . - P. 1232-1244 .
- ↑ Heath, Chip. Made to Stick. - Random House, 2007.
- ↑ Ross, L., & Ward, A. (1996). Naive realism in everyday life: Implications for social conflict and misunderstanding. In T. Brown, ES Reed & E. Turiel (Eds.), Values and knowledge (pp. 103-135). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
- ↑ 1 2 3 Wieman, Carl. The "Curse of Knowledge," or Why Intuition About Teaching Often Fails // APS News: journal. - 2007. - Vol. The Back Page , no. 10 .
- ↑ Froyd, Jeff; Layne, Jean (2008). "Faculty development strategies for overcoming the" curse of knowledge "/ 2008 38th Annual Frontiers in Education Conference .. - ISBN ISBN 978-1-4244-1969-2 ..
- ↑ 1 2 Fischhoff, Baruch (1975). "Hindsight is not equal to foresight: The effect of outcome knowledge on judgment under uncertainty" .. - Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance .. - P. 288–299 ..
- ↑ Myerson, Roger B. "Negotiation in Games: A Theoretical Overview". In Un-certainty, Information, and Communication: Essays in Honor of Kenneth J. Arrow, vol. 3, edited by Walter P. Heller, Ross M. Starr, and David A. Starrett .. - New York: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1986 ..
- ↑ Forsythe, Robert; Kennan, John; Sopher, Barry (1991). "An Experimental Analysis of Strikes in Bargaining Games with One-Sided Private Information." - The American Economic Review., 1991. - S. 253–278.
- ↑ Banks, Jeff; Camerer, Colin F .; and Porter, David. "Experimental Tests of Nash Refinements in Signaling Games.". - Philadelphia: Univ. Pennsylvania, Dept. Decision Sci., 1988.
- ↑ Heath, Chip; Heath, Dan. "The Curse of Knowledge". // Harvard Business Review .. - (Dec 2006).
- ↑ Birch, SAJ; Bloom, P. (2007). "The Curse of Knowledge in Reasoning About False Beliefs" (PDF). Psychological Science . 18 (5): 382–386. doi : 10.1111 / j.1467-9280.2007.01909.x . PMID 17576275 .
- ↑ Birch, Susan AJ; Bernstein, Daniel M. (2007). "What Can Children Tell Us About Hindsight Bias: A Fundamental Constraint on Perspective – Taking?" (PDF). Social Cognition . 25 (1): 98–113. doi : 10.1521 / soco.2007.25.1.98 .