03/30/2024
Gong Fairy Tale merchants take note
Even if you think you understand something complicated after cursory exposure, you almost certainly donāt understand it well enough to hold forth on the topic, Arthur C. Brooks writes: https://theatln.tc/U2fDzEb2
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The internet has fed a huge reservoir of good information, but it has also created an explosion of nonsense. Some of what people see is straight-up fake newsāpredatory attempts to swindle consumers. But much of the bad advice on the web actually originates in a psychological phenomenon called āthe illusion of explanatory depth,ā a phenomenon similar to the famous Dunning-Kruger effect, which explains how people with low levels of skill in an activity tend to overrate their competence. One explanation for this is āhypocognitionāāpeople donāt know what they donāt know. As researchers have shown, when a personās confidence is highest though their actual knowledge is low, they become very believable to othersādespite not being reliable. And the more inaccurate people are, the more they tend to be swayed by their own underinformed overconfidence.ā
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The two ways we fall prey to the illusion are as consumers and as producers, Brooks continues. The plight of the consumer of misinformation is the hardest to address, because it isnāt always easy to know when someone is a true expert or just flush with false confidence. The key question to ask is āDoes the source of this technical assertion have a genuine technical background?ā If the answer is no, proceed with caution. The second conditionābeing a supplier of bad informationāis easier to treat. āLearning about novel ideas is a thrill, and indeed, many researchers believe that interest itself is a positive emotionāa source of pleasure rooted in the evolutionary imperative to learn new things,ā Brooks writes. āCruising the web in search of interesting things is great fun. But beware your own susceptibility to the illusion of explanatory depth.āā
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šØ: Jan Buchczik
